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. V 


H O N O R I A ; 


THE GOSPEL OF A LIFE. 


ROSE PORTER, 

V» 

AUTHOR OF “SUMMER DRIFTWOOD,” “CHARITY, SWEET 

CHARITY,” ETC. 








rr' . 

WASHR'^ 



NEW YORK: 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th STREET. 


I 




COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 

Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 


Edward O. Jenkins’ Sons, 
Printers and Stereotypers y 
20 North William St., New York. 


Remember, 

' “ The dear Lord's best interpreters 
Are humble human souls ; 

The Gospel of a Life — 

Is more than books or scrolls.” 

— Whittier. 


/ 




Gospel is a large word ; and if it really is what it 
calls itself, it s>hould be able to tell us, not only how 
to escape penalties, but how to win righteousness ; 
how to live, as well as how to die j what we may en- 
joy, as well as what we must surrender.” 

“ Every blessing of the Gospel is new. It is itself a 
New Testament, it proposes a new birth, it makes a 
new creature. It brings new joy, it creates new hope, 
it imparts new strength, it reveals new light, and it 
sets before us a new Heaven, and a new earth, it is 
emphatically newness of life.” — Thorold. 



PART I 


M 


PRELUDE. 


‘‘Alas!” cried the princess, “I can never 
find the door, nor enter the golden cavern ; it 
has been closed for thousands of years, and it 
will remain closed forever.” 

Then spake the hermit, asking: “What 
flowers are these which thou boldest ? ” 

The princess made reply : 

“ Only primroses, may-keys, and tulips.” — 
And the hermit bowed his head, as softly 
he murmured : 

“ Primroses, may-keys, and tulips ! a maid- 
en’s scepter. Fear not, princess, the door will 
open ; all you have to do is to touch the Rock/ 
with the flowers of the Spring. 

“ Remember, touch the Rock, and the door 
will open.” 


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4 


H ON O RI A. 


I. 



HE gospel of a Life ! Honoria Lambert’s 


-L life. — How shall I tell it, when the word, 
Life, lays its touch of mystery on the very 
threshold of my page ? 

Life ! that never-ending existence which 
our earth-trammeled language is as powerless 
to bound as we are to bind the course of the 
wind which bloweth where it listeth, and no 
man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it 
goeth.” — Life! No wonder our own poet, 
Whittier, writes — Life is a mystery, death 
is a mystery,” thus echoing the words of the 
old-time philosopher. 

Do you remember how the record tells, 
when the wise men asked Confucius, What 
is death?” the sage replied, Life is such a 
mystery that I do not look to penetrate what 
is beyond it.” — And shall we strive to be 
wiser than philosopher and poet ? 


(II) 


12 


HONORIA. 


No — we leave it, the silent Hereafter, a mys- 
tery, vast, unfathomable ; but we sign it, with 
the sign of the Cross, and in the shadow of 
the Cross — Christ’s Cross — eyes that now are 
holden, can yet read the promise — “ What ye 
know not now, ye shall know hereafter.” 
Only trust — and wait. — “ Why seek ye the 
living among the dead ? ” 

But the story of Honoria, must it be veiled 
in mystery, because it is a life-story? — and 
thus a story we can not follow into the Be- 
yond ? 

I think not, for there need be no mystery 
about it, except in that subtle way, in which 
what we term the guidance of Providence, is 
a Weiled Angel.’ Providence! it is a word 
often misunderstood, but when once appreci- 
ated, ah think! how it fills life with the Heav- 
enly chorus of “ Peace, be still ” — “ I am with 
thee.” Think, too, in our own lives how often 
we meet ‘Veiled Angels ’—the “ministering 
spirits, sent forth to minister.” — Full well 

“ We know how radiant and how kind 
Their faces are those veils behind ; 


HONORIA. 


13 


We trust those veils one happy day, 

In heaven and earth shall pass away.” 

Aught else there may be of mystery in 
Honoria’s story nature will serve to explain, for 
though nature in its working is ever a mys- 
"Hery, nevertheless it is an ^‘open secret,” a 
constant revelation full of the significance' of 
seed-time and harvest, blossom and fruit. 

Taking then this kindly teacher for a guide, 
I will begin my tale with the years that en- 
compassed Honoria’s childhood. — Years that 
were so full of gladness, all her life long they 
were framed in the golden frame of happy 
memories, thus running parallel with the story 
of nature’s season of ‘‘golden glories,” the 
joyous spring-time, when 

“ The buttercup is like a golden cup, 

The marigold is like a golden frill. 

The daisy with a golden eye looks up. 

And golden spreads the flag beside the rill. 
And gay and golden nods the daffodil, 

The gorsey common swells a golden sea. 

The cowslip hangs a head of golden tips. 

And golden drips the honey which the bee 
Sucks from sweet hearts of flowers and stores 
and sips.” 


II. 


S I tell you the story of Honoria’s dawn- 



-ZTJL. ing years, come, let us unlatch th^ 
gate, and together enter the garden where in 
childhood her baby feet chased the butterflies 
as she played among the flowers, and where 
her baby laugh, that “joy-hymn” of child- 
hood, made music sweeter than the song of 
birds, — the garden, where thoughts entered 
the child’s soul, too, and where imagination 
began to unfold its mystic lore long before 
she knew aught of printed page, or the knowl- 
edge learned from books. 

This garden-bounded life rounded out full 
ten years, before she knew aught either, of the 
knowledge learned from frequent intercourse 
with playmates of her own age ; or from min- 
gling with those comers and goers between 
home and the outer world — the older folk — 
from whom children are wont to receive im- 
pressions as easily as a strong hand moulds 


(14) 


V 


HONORIA, 


15 


pliant wax. For childhood is a time when 
impressions are received as unconsciously as 
sunlight is absorbed. 

But none of these influences surrounded 
Honoria. 

The daily companionship of her grandpa- 
rents, the home walls, the home garden, and 
the far-away look-out places pointed toward 
by the points of the compass, these meant the 
world for this child. And yet — it was a full 
world. Think of all it held and suggested. 

There were dense forests Westward where 
stately pines and hemlocks grew, and from 
where she heard the hammers of the great 
stone quarries resounding through the woods, 
a sound that gave Honoria her first thought 
of manual labor. — Southward, stretched the 
marsh meadows, where colors gleamed in 
every shade of vivid green, rusty red, and 
sombre brown. — Northward, the boundary line 
of Honoria’s seeing was shut in by high hills ; 
and Eastward, ah, that to the child was the 
wonder-place, for the oceanward side is where 
the Harbor leads out to the broad Atlantic. 


i6 


HONORIA. 


It is a varied coast-line about Harbor-town, 
full of picturesque combinations ; the bank 
for a mile or more as it stretches away from 
the town is an almost unbroken sandy low- 
lying shore ; near and about the hamlet, where 
the fisher-folk dwell, it is one continuous suc- 
cession of bays and coves, where the water 
gleams in hues blue as the sky, and where bold 
headlands — venturesome promontories — dart 
far out into the wide plain of sea water ; while 
white-capped waves dash on those rocks in 
never-ceasing play, or roll up over the smooth 
gray sand in a thousand breaking ripplets. 
And then, out beyond, there are the great 
masses of red granite-boulders, piled up the 
one against another in infinite confusion, and 
extending for full half a mile of broken reef 
and treacherous coast. — A coast, whence the 
Harbor lights shine forth as soon as ever the 
sun sinks behind the forest tree-tops over 
Westward. 

These sights, with the white sails of ships 
far off on the open sea, the out-going, and in- 
coming of fishing fleets, or the near sail of 


HO NOKIA. 


17 


pilot-boat guiding home-leaving or home-re- 
turning vessel across the Harbor bar, made 
the poetry of Honoria Lambert’s day-dreams. 

And when twilight deepened, and night en- 
folded in its mantle of shadows, scenes near 
and far ; then, the sky was her companion. 
Though the sky was a friend by day as well as 
by night for that matter. — An ever-meaning- 
full friend, whether she gazed up into the 
depth of the over-arching blue dome, or 
watched the gathering of the cloud-pictures, 
made sometimes of fleecy vapor, that gradual- 
ly blended into white far-reaching cloud-banks ; 
and sometimes of the scudding cloudlets that 
indicated a near rainfall. In truth so well 
Honoria loved her upward looks, well-nigh 
from babyhood she was familiar with the 
signs of the sky, the significance of halo, 
rainbow, corona and fog. But best of all she 
loved the starry firmament by night, when the 
new moon, or the full moon reigned Queen, 
and when, glory of all, the sun still held sway 
in its reflected light of day-time shining. 

And yet, even then, though she was only a 


i8 


HONOR! A. 


ten-year-old child, she wanted something more, 
she wanted the Heart of it all. And so her 
search began, her search after the Heart of 
Life. 

Did she find it ? Do we any of us find 

it? 

There is but one way, and that a well-worn 
path, old as the centuries eighteen hundred 
and more, since the Christ said, I am the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life.” 


III. 


ULL twenty years before Honoria’s life 



JL' began, Squire Lambert and his wife had 
come, strangers from over the sea, and to the 
astonishment of rich and poor, they had chosen 
for a settling-place the sea-port hamlet — Har- 
bor-town. In fact, when the turreted roof and 
many-windowed walls of the red-brick mansion 
had been reared it had seemed a veritable folly 
to build so spacious a dwelling in that remote 


place. 


For in those days, and even on till a time 
long after Honoria’s arrival, the chief contact 
Harbor-town inhabitants had with the busy 
life of the world was limited to the semi- 
annual arrival — fresh from the Banks — of a 
whaling vessel, or fleet of fishing smacks, and 
the coming of now one, and then another of 
Captain Jacob Forbes’ schooners, bringing 
mails bearing dates sometimes a week, and 


(19) 


20 


HONOR! A. 


sometimes a month old. News, too, was 
almost as slow in coming from the villages, 
that like daisies in the grass studded that 
Eastern coast. Yes — certainly it was a strange 
place for a man like Squire Lambert in the 
vigor of his life to choose for a home-nest. 

Naturally, from the fact of remoteness and 
freedom from exciting events, any unusual 
occasion was hailed in Harbor-town as afford- 
ing a topic for long-lasting discussion. It was 
thus with the Squire’s arrival, and later when 
little Honoria came. 

This latter event was so full of interest, for 
many a month afterward, — on every return trip 
of the schooner. Sea Foam ^ — Captain Forbes’ 
wife was sure to find eager listeners to her tale, 
of the gentle-voiced lady who had placed the 
baby-girl in her motherly arms with the oft 
repeated injunction : “ Take the child to Har- 
bor-town, and give her to Mrs. Lambert.” As 
for this lady, — thus Mrs. Forbes was wont to 
say — she was so closely veiled, none could tell 
whether her face bore the marks of age, or the 
look of youth. 


HONORIA. 


21 


Mrs. Forbes had a grateful nature, hence 
she never failed to end her tale with the re- 
cital of the royal compensation she received 
for taking care of the child. “ A crisp Bank 
note, and a shining gold piece beside,” she 
was wont to add. But though naturally 
loquacious, she was always silent about the 
moment of parting — never telling more than 
that sobs shook the gentle lady’s slender form, 
as the tempest shakes the tall grass of a salt 
meadow. Even the memory made Mrs. 
Forbes’ own tears fall like rain. 

And the fisher-wives did not wonder, rug- 
ged daughters of toil and hardship though 
they were, for they all knew there had been a 
time when Mrs. Forbes had held in her arms 
a little child of her own. A child with eyes 
like Honoria’s, blue as the sky. Doubtless it 
was this tender memory of mother-love, the 
ache of her heart to hold a baby close, that 
made Mrs. Forbes feel toward little Honoria 
something akin to the right of ownership, even 
though the voyage from Boston — where the 
baby had been entrusted to her care — could 


22 


HONORIA. 


be counted by days and nights numbering not 
more than the fingers on her strong right 
hand. These items, nothing more than sug- 
gestions, were all the Harbor-town folk knew 
of Honoria Lambert’s first year of life. But 
they sufficed to make plain the fact, that she 
was the daughter of Squire and Mrs. Lam- 
bert’s son, Ralph, — the young man who, in 
anger, had left his father’s home' on a spring 
morning, some five years before ; one of those 
gusty, stormful days that herald the wild 
winds that sweep that Eastern shore about 
the time of the spring equinox. A day as 
unlike the clear sunshine, and cloudless sky 
that greeted Honoria’s arrival, as the fair- 
faced child was unlike the young man — Ralph 
Lambert — her father. 

What caused the difficulty between Squire 
Lambert and his- son, no one definitely under- 
stood, not even the home-servants, or the gray- 
haired pastor of the parish church, who went 
among the people of his scattered flock with 
the freedom of a shepherd going in and out 
among his sheep-folds. 


V 


ffONORIA. 


23 

Ralph had always been much from home, 
first at school, then at college. He was city 
bred in manner, and a somewhat cold, distant 
youth, not one to win his way into the hearts 
of the free out-spoken Harbor-town men and 
women, who yet were not lacking in a digni- 
fied reserve. Indeed they still retained the 
old-time New England traits untouched by 
the inroad of new thoughts and ways, though, 
as Captain Forbes quaintly expressed it, “in 
the cities and large towns new notions were 
turning old ideas inside out, as fast as a well- 
worked mill, turned russets and pipins into 
cider, sparkling as champagne.” If his hearers 
did not quite know what the sparkling cham- 
pagne symbolized, they knew full well the 
significance of a rosy, round-cheeked apple 
turned into flowing liquid. 

It was their custom, however, to take the 
good Captain’s words, as words of wisdom — 
for did he not know the ways of the world ? 

Great importance also was added to Captain 
Forbes’ knowledge and judgment, from the 
fact, that he was chosen by Squire Lambert to 


24 


HO NOKIA. 


be the bringer from Boston of the carefully 
protected roots, cuttings, and seedlings that 
had taken so kindly to the Harbor-town soil. 
In truth the Squire’s garden had become a 
central place of interest, not only to the vil- 
lagers, but to the country-side people for miles 
and miles inland. A place of interest, too, to 
many a weary sailor lad, or toil-worn fisher- 
man who felt, even when outside the Harbor 
bar, the glow of nearing home as they caught 
sight of the high wall — made from stones 
brought from the forest quarries — that pro- 
tected the garden’s seaward side. 

To one sailing up the Bay that wall looked 
verily like a coast fortification — and so it was 
in one sense, for when the wind was wild, and 
the waves running high, it guarded well the 
roses and lilies, and the hundred other tender 
blossoms that every spring-time unfolded in 
the garden borders, their own “ floral calendar 
of the year.” It was the blooming flowers, 
the early comers — crocuses, tulips, sturdy 
jonquils, golden daffodils, violets, and lily- 
bells that were all awake in May-time glad- 


HONOR! A. 


25 


ness, that caused Honoria to clap her tiny 
hands with joy, when first she passed within 
the wide open garden gate, that by the way 
of the flower-bordered path, led up to the 
stately house. — A house that henceforth, dur- 
ing the years of childhood and girlhood, was 
to be her home, and hence home, in a certain 
way, all the days of her life. Do we ever, 
even though the years of our earthly lives 
count the allotted “ three score and ten,’' lose 
from our hearts the Home of Childhood ? 

I think not. 


IV. 


ELIEVING in the life-lasting influence 



of early surroundings and training, it is 
almost necessary in the telling of Honoria’s 
story to give at least an outline sketch of the 
special personalities of her grandparents, as 
well as a brief account of certain epochs in their 
youthful and middle-aged years which explain 
the somewhat unusual method of Honoria’s 
education. 

And yet it is no easy task to picture either 
Mrs. Lambert, or her husband, whom I can 
only think of as the ‘ Squire,’ so firmly had 
that favorite New England title for a man of 
wealth and influence become clinched to his 
name. He was of a powerful frame, large- 
limbed, and tall, with a somewhat massive 
head, clear gray eyes, firm-set mouth, and a 
broad, intellectual brow. 

This was the outer man, and spite much 


(26) 


ffONORIA. 


27 


that seemed contradictory, I think Squire 
Lambert’s physique was a fair type of his 
soul, for there was nothing narrow about him. 
He was open-handed and open-hearted by 
nature, and if somewhat taciturn and reserved 
in manner, there were shadows in his by-gone 
history that explained it. 

But to Honoria he was neither taciturn nor 
reserved. He was all tenderness to her ; but 
then he loved the child. Loved her with all 
the intensity of a repressed soul, and in his 
thoughts he enfolded her too, in the poetry 
that was the heritage of his birth-land. If he 
had been a woman, rather than a self-con- 
trolled man, perchance this sentiment would 
have found utterance in words tender as a 
caress, for truly, though he never thus said, 
his heart recognized the child as “ a flower 
on his cross.” 

This spirit of unspoken poetry pervaded 
the Squire’s whole life, and found expression 
in his love for all God’s bounty of growing 
things, and his garden was as dear to him as 
though the buds and blossoms knew the care 


28 HONORIA. 

with which he tended them. Wherever he 
went his eyes were wide open to look for 
nature’s beauty, and so, though I cannot call 
him a happy, contented man, yet, he was not 
wholly unhappy, for no one can be who seeks 
beauty and meaning in God’s works. And 
this. Squire Lambert certainly did. 

He and his wife were natives of the “ land 
of yellow broom, and the blossoming heather ” 
— and both were thoroughly Scotch in their 
loyal love of country, and yet, they had 
sought a new land, a new home ! But of that, 
later on, — for just here is the place to describe 
Mrs. Lambert. 

Her years had crossed life’s meridian when 
the child Honoria came to her, a birdling 
from that tenderest of all nests — a mother’s 
arms. Seeming, too, a message from the ab- 
sent son, for whom Mrs. Lambert mourned 
with a sorrow not deeper — but bitterer, — 
ah ! that was the sting of it — than the grief 
she felt for the loss from her earthly home, 
of the three little lads, whose graves were far 
away in Scotland ; and as a reflection of her 


HONORIA. 


29 

sorrow, her countenance was marked by a 
look of pain, blended with peace. 

Something of the same blending of grief, 
and yet gladness, sounded in her voice too, 
perhaps never more distinctly than it did 
the day when Honoria first reached out her 
baby hands, and sprang from the warm clasp 
of ruddy-faced Mrs. Forbes into the tender 
embrace of the grandmother’s arms out- 
stretched in welcome. 

‘^My Ralph’s bairn, my laddie’s bairn,” — 
were the words Mrs. Lambert murmured, as 
she bowed her head over the golden curls of 
the smiling child. For like a child — the baby 
smiled, while the middle-aged woman wept. 
And yet, “just as a glimmer of sunshine 
brightness plays across the innocent showers 
of an April day,” so that hour God touched 
for Mrs. Lambert “the tears of life with 
brightness.” 

For such a blessing the coming of the child 
proved. Still, I repeat, the note sweet as the 
echo of far-off music, sad as the echo of a 
sigh, never left her voice. 


30 


HONORIA. 


She always remained one of those women, 
we meet them among the rich and poor, 
learned and unlearned, who make us feel that 
their capacity for suffering has gone for years 
hand in hand with their capacity for joy — 
that they have somehow failed in finding the 
fulfilment of life’s early promise — and be- 
long to the sisterhood of whom the poet 
sings : 

There’s always just something 
Between me and light, 

Some curtain of darkness, 

Some Pine-covered height. 

“ There’s ever a duty 
Forbidding the rest. 

That returns like the gleam 
Of the Sun in the West.” 

Ah ! if such women . in their weariness, — 
whether it be of heart or body, — would only 
remember there ^‘remaineth a Rest for the 
people of God,” — not here, but There, 

Mrs. Lambert did remember this ; she lived 
in the light of it too, spite the impress of the 
by-gone, which had set its seal on her face, 
long before the time of which I now tell. A 


IIONORIA, 


31 


time, when whatever her early charm may 
have been, no one would have called her 
beautiful, with the beauty of youthful bloom 
and regular features. Nevertheless, it was a 
time when her dear smile had an attraction 
more abiding than beauty alone can possess. 
For, when middle-age has come, the blended 
look of struggle and yet submission is what 
makes a face interesting — revealing, as it 
does, the story of a soul, when the soul’s life 
has been upward, climbing first, and then 
soaring! — and this was the record of Mrs. 
Lambert’s soul. 

And so no wonder she had caught a reflec- 
tion of the ‘angel-look’ which like the ‘ New 
Name ’ was awaiting her in the blessed here- 
after, where life’s lessons pass into Heaven’s 
progress — “ from height to height.” 

Ah! think of Heaven’s Mountain -tops, 
and their illumining ! “ In Thy Light, we 

shall see Light,” that is. the promise; its fulfil- 
ment, “ Knowledge, in a fulness of Brightness, 
which in its completeness we can not know 
here ; for this is a world of cloud and shadow ; 


32 


HONOR! A. 


but, thank God! the Heaven in which the 
cloud floats is larger than the cloud, and all 
full of light, and the true philosophy of life is 
to strive to get that light within ourselves ’’ 
— even the Light of Christ’s felt Presence. 
And we may get it in good measure, even 
though not in full completeness — for the 
kingdom of God — it is not ‘ lo here ’ ! or 
Go there’! it is within us, it is to be found 
with God’s grace everywhere.” When found 
— serenity of soul is its sign ; and on Mrs. 
Lambert’s countenance it reflected a look 
that seemed caught from hearkening to “a 
sweet perpetual hymn of quiet.” 

As a natural outcome of her life of aspira- 
tion, a certain severity of judgment that had 
belonged to her in youth, had melted as snow 
before sunshine. It was doubtless this gentle 
kindliness of manner, the index of her heart’s 
good-will, that straightway disarmed little 
Honoria from any fear of the tall lady, clad 
in a robe of silvery gray, who stood that May 
morning on the wide porch of Squire Lam- 
bert’s mansion, awaiting the coming of the 


HONORIA. 


33 

child. And from that first hour of their 
meeting there always continued between 
grandmother and child — youth and age, a 
love that vibrated in harmony with that 
'' perfect love which casteth out fear,” because 
its foundation was trust. 

How I came to know all this and the details 
of Squire and Mrs. Lambert’s early life the 
next chapter will tell. For I need a fresh 
page for the recountment of their story, 
which somehow stands apart in my memory 
like some isolated reef on that coast where 
reefs abounded — or like some star a space 
separated from Heaven’s star-full constella- 
tions. An ocean rock-reef — and a lonely star ! 
Two strange emblems to meet in the story of 
two lives — and yet — life — real life, is full of 
just such sharp contrasts. 


3 


V. 


ND now for the life story, which in a 



-jLIV- certain way serves as a preface to the 
story of our Honoria. 

I was a visitor at the Manor House. It 
was a summer morning — we were sitting, 
Bessie Ferguson — (Mrs. Lambert's sister) — 
and myself, on the wide porch that looked 
oceanward. Our hands were busy with 
needlework — our minds busy with thoughts, 
and my musings were linked with the present 
— Bessie Ferguson’s with the past. Doubt- 
less this was why she fell into telling me 
more than I had ever known of her sister’s 
young days and the near afterward time. 

What she told I pass on to you. 

“ My sister ” — thus Bessie began — ‘‘ filled a 
mid-way place in a family of daughters — 
called by the neighbors a daisy-chain — we 
counted seven in all. At the time of which I 


( 34 ) 


HONORIA. 


35 


tell, the elder sisters were a trio of recognized 
belles in the fastidious society of Edinburgh, 
where then, as now, intelligence and culture 
were more sought after than bright eyes and 
rosy cheeks, though for that matter, my sisters 
were not wanting in charm of feature and 
coloring. 

“ We younger ones were still under nursery 
rule, while Frances (that is Mrs. Lambert) 
was just beginning to enjoy a half-way eman- 
cipation from what had been all her life before 
the well-nigh undisputed sway of Aunt Anna, 
who had filled the place of home-mother for 
us, before, and after the time when our own 
young mother began to fade like a flower — 
and that was soon after the birth of her 
youngest born — myself — Bess. 

In fact Aunt Anna's right was as firmly 
established in our home as the roots of the 
fir-trees were interwoven with the soil of the 
garden plot that encircled our residence — a 
residence located in a side street leading out 
toward Calton Hill. 

‘‘ Though, as I said, Frances was gliding 


HONOR! A. 


36 

toward young ladyhood, she still liked best 
to be with ‘ the little sisters,’ rather than the 
older ones, and spite her age we were like 
happy children together. 

* Children for whom the sun 
Never came a wink too soon, 

Nor brought too long a day.’ 

“ Our father — Prof. Ferguson — ^was a silent 
man ; we all stood in awe of him, and yet it 
was not fear we felt so much as a loyal rever- 
ence. He had married early in life, a fair, 
gentle English bride, who loved him with the 
clinging devotion of a dependent child rather 
than the strong, helpful love of womanly 
companionship. And this child-wife affection 
had in it so much of timidity and self-distrust, 
I know from what Aunt Anna told me, my 
mother knew naught of the«beautiful rest and 
harmony of souls that supplement one the 
other.” 

After a long pause, Bessie Ferguson had 
resumed her narrative, saying : 

‘‘ It is that harmony which makes married 


HONOR! A. 


37 


life to some men and women so blessed a 
thing that it seems always to echo like the 
chords of an ^olian harp with music-full 
notes, whether the winds blow east or west, 
north or south.” 

And then Bessie was still again for full five 
minutes. I remember the look in her eyes — 
as though I had seen it but yesterday ; it was 
almost as significant as if her thought had 
found utterance. Yes, I knew she was pon- 
dering why her sister, Mrs. Lambert, like her 
mother, should have missed the knowledge of 
a happy wedded life. And yet when Bessie 
Ferguson resumed her story, her words gave 
no hint of her thought — for she said : 

How strange it is that sisters brought up 
in the same home, surrounded by the same 
influences, yet need as the years come and go 
to be taught by experiences as different as 
sunshine is from shadow.” 

I ventured to reply by the commonplace 
thought, that it was no stranger than the fact 
that some flowers needed shady nooks, others 
sunny borders. No stranger than the truth 


38 


HO NOKIA. 


flower-lovers tell, assuring us the blossoms of 
sweetest fragrance are wont to be those that 
bloom in shadowed places. 

As I ceased speaking, Bessie reminded 
me of some skilful worker who ends one 
thread and begins another without leaving the 
mark of any break — for she continued her 
story with no heed to my words — but I leave 
it for a moment just to take up the thought 
of ending and beginning threads ! 

How full some lives are of them. I often 
wonder, thinking of it, if a deeper meaning 
than we are wont to read does not underlie 
the words that tell of our Saviour’s seam- 
less robe.” A garment all complete — yet we 
never read it was a costly fabric, royal purple 
in hue, and fringed with twisted linen. No 
— the Gospel record only tells the robe was 
seamless, as befitted the earthly garment worn 
by Him who lived the perfect life, in whose 
sacred holiness there were no breaks, no flaws 
—it was all one. Yes, surely there is a hidden 
truth for us to seek in the sentence which tells 
of a Seamless Robe. 


HONORIA. 


39 ^ 


I have made so wide a digression, I will 
bridge a page of details in Bessie Ferguson’s 
anecdotical tale and resume it, at a date later 
by two years or more ; and this brings us to 
the time when Allen Lambert had come a 
lad from his Highland home to make one of 
the throng of students who sought Prof. 
Ferguson’s class-room. 

Allen was the son of an old and dear 
friend of our father’s,” Bessie said, ^^and he 
was straightway welcomed to our home with 
the warmth of clanship. I remember my 
father bade him come and go as though he 
were in truth a son or nephew of the house. 
During his first, and part of his second year 
at college, the young man — for the sake of 
consulting books in my father’s private library 
— eagerly availed himself of this permission. 
But afterward! we sisters knew — even we 
young ones — it came to be Frances, not the 
wisdom of the books, Allen sought. When 
our father knew this he was pleased ; he made 
no objection to Allen’s suit, he smiled on it — 
and later he smiled on the wedding day, too. 


40 


HONORIA. 


“Aunt Anna also was pleased, more so than 
with the prospects of my other sisters. 

“ ^ Frances has a steady head for a girl but 
just out of her teens,’ she was wont to say, 
‘ and a steadfast heart, too ; the love of her 
youth will be the love of her old age, for there 
are some women to whom first love means 
love forever.’ — Those days were Frances’ idyl 
days,” Bessie continued, and she sighed, — she 
was a woman with a tender heart — as softly 
she added, “ They say every woman has her 
idyl time.” 

Then she told how after a six months’ en- 
gagement they were married, and straight- 
way began housekeeping in Allen Lambert’s 
Highland home. He was a young man of 
wealth, and also fell heir about that time, — 
through the death of an uncle, — to large 
estates in the Island of Jamaica. “ I think the 
first years of married life were happy,” said 
Bessie ; “ certainly if there were shadows, we 
at home did not know of them. Cares, of 
course, Frances had, for she was young to be 
the mistress of so large an establishment, and 


HONOR! A. 


41 

the mother of three fine lads, too, before the 
years of her married life counted seven.” 

At this period of her tale Bessie put aside 
her work, and shaded her eyes with her up- 
lifted hand, as though the reflected sunshine 
playing on the ocean waves, and garden 
flowers, were too bright a thing for the after- 
part of her tale. 

“ Now,” she said, ^‘we are coming, as all life 
pilgrims must, to a time of shadows. 

“ It was near the dawning of the eighth anni- 
versary of Frances’ wedding-day. For months 
there had been a great stirring in the minds of 
Scotland’s scientific men, among whom Allen 
Lambert held a foremost place for a man 
comparatively young. 

“ The point in question was a dispute on an 
astronomical subject, and at last it was de- 
cided to settle the matter by the reading of 
essays, stating the claims on both sides. Six 
were to be the number of papers read, and 
among many applicants Allen Lambert was 
appointed to prepare one of the six. 

“ The subject was all-absorbing to him ; day 


42 


IIONORIA. 


and night he devoted to study, and Frances 
was hardly less absorbed. My father, too, was 
deeply interested ; in fact, every member of the 
family was in a state of high expectancy. 

‘‘The judges chosen to decide on the merits 
of the essays were all men of letters, and well 
known in the scholarly world of Edinburgh. 
When the day and hour came for the reading 
of the articles all of us sisters were present, 
except Frances, the one who cared most. But 
the journey from her Highland home was too 
far for the baby boy — her fourth son, Ralph — 
a month old at that time. Strange, from the 
very first this boy was as unlike his sturdy 
brothers as a pale moonbeam is unlike un- 
clouded sunshine. 

“ I never can forget that day,” and Bessie’s 
cheeks flushed just from the memory, as she 
continued : “ I seem to see now the concourse 
of thinking, broad-browed men, assembled in 
the College Hall. I can hear, too, the applause 
that followed Allen’s reading of his paper, and 
the decision in his favor. 

“Yes, for that one day, among that band of 


HONORIA. 


43 

literary men, Allen Lambert was crowned king 
in the realm of thought/' 

After a brief silence Bessie spoke again, in 
a voice vibrating with deep emotion ; for she 
told how, before nightfall of the next day, 
Allen’s glory was dimmed by the most cruel 
of accusations, — asserting that the leading ar- 
gument of his essay was a bold plagiarism. 

‘‘‘The accusation appeared in two of the most 
reliable journals, and straightway was taken 
up and repeated far and near. 

“We who knew him best, all knew the story 
was false. We knew he was the soul of honor ; 
but proof, strange as it seems, was well-nigh 
impossible to obtain, — for at that very time 
another scholar had formulated much the same 
theory. ” 

But I will not linger over Bessie’s detailed 
account of those days. Enough for us to know 
that Allen Lambert’s nature, or rather his 
temperament, seemed suddenly transformed ; 
even the courage which is wont to belong 
to an honorable man — and Allen was that — 
failed him. 


44 


HONORIA. 


He seemed all unable to endure suspicion 
with the quiet calm of a brave soul — waiting — 
and knowing a good man’s life is generally 
sufficient to defend itself, and sooner or later 
the lie rebounds on him who utters it.” 

Bitterest of all that time of bitter experi- 
ence was the fact, that no word of tenderness, 
no repeated assurance of unquestioning love 
and confidence could convince Allen that Fran- 
ces trusted him without a shadow of doubt. 

Her pleadings were all in vain ; he was like 
a blind man ; every ray of light seemed turned 
to darkness, and the darkness did not lift. 
Their once happy home had become a changed 
place. 

It was not the blighting of his brilliant lit- 
erary prospects, Bessie explained, that had 
wounded him so cruelly ; but that more than 
one among the scholarly men, who had known 
him from his college days on, yet believed the 
false story. 

It was this, that gave the death-blow to 
Allen Lambert’s youth. For truth had ever 
been a sacred master in his soul — even the 


HONORTA. 


45 

approach of falseness had been to him as the 
touch of some poisonous thing. 

Why is it that people are inclined to be- 
lieve evil rather than good ? and why — even 
when the evil exists — are we so much sterner 
in our judgments, or condemnations rather, 
than the Gospel writers ? I like these words 
of Max Miiller on this thought. Do you re- 
member ? — he says : 

“ Nothing I admire more in the Gospels 
than the open way in which they sometimes 
speak of the failings of the Apostles. In their 
eyes nothing could have been more grievous 
than St. .Peter’s denial of Christ. Yet they 
made no secret of it, and without any public 
confession, recantation, or penance, Peter, 
after he has wept bitterly, is as great an 
Apostle as all the others, nay even greater. 
Surely these are passing clouds only, and what 
we ought to look to is the bright sky behind.” 

All this is a far wandering from Allen Lam- 
bert, and the story Bessie Ferguson told me, 
that summer morning, as we sat on the porch, 
that opened out toward the garden and the sea. 


46 


HONORIA. 


It was twilight when I listened to the se- 
quel of her tale. A sequel briefly told — for 
all she said was : 

In my sister’s home that year the old saying 
was verified, * that troubles never come alone.’ 

For it was but two months after the Ed- 
inburgh meeting when Duncan, the oldest of 
their lads, sickened with fever — and Duncan’s 
last fluttering breath had hardly ceased, when 
Fergus and Walter were stricken by the 
same malady. And — within one short week 
— such a brief time to span a mother’s part- 
ing from three brave lads — in the Highland 
Kirk-yard three graves were made — three 
silent little forms laid away ^ in the hope of 
a joyful resurrection.’ 

That was the only comfort — and it was a 
comfort to Frances. For firmly she believed 
they were children of the Covenant — those 
little lads — who by baptismal rite had been 
sealed members of God’s dear flock — the 
pledge of it the sign of the cross.” — 

After hearing all this I needed no further 
explanation of why Mr. and Mrs. Lambert had 


HO NOKIA. 


47 


left their early home, and sought the new land 
of America. It explained, too, why Squire 
Lambert had turned from the haunts of men 
to a place secluded as Harbor-town. But it 
did not explain why the shadow dividing him 
and his wife from sympathy the one with the 
other had not lifted. 

Neither did it explain his severity tow^ard 
the child left — and his final estrangement 
from this son — but this last event, before my 
visit ended I did understand. And I will tell 
you of it, and then return to the record of 
this son's child — Honoria — whose life I call a 
Gospel. 

Do you ask — why I.use that term ? In early 
Greek the word Gospel meant the reward 
given to all who brought good tidings — and 
it became a kind of exclamation like our say- 
ing, ‘ Good-news ’ ! ” 

And good-news was what Honoria brought 
all her life long to the hearts and homes of 
those who loved her. For God blessed her all 
the years of her life, and made her a blessing — 
hence a Gospel. 


VI. 


ALPH LAMBERT was always a deli- 



JL t cate child — of a timid, fretful disposi- 
tion, too — and as he grew older, what had 
seemed the weakness of babyhood developed 
into self-will and violent outbursts of temper 
when crossed ; and Mrs. Lambert, in her desire 
to save her husband from trial, strove to shield 
the boy from his father’s observation when 
these stormy times occurred. 

Thus she encouraged, though unconsciously, 
the child’s natural spirit of deception, and 
helped forward the very fault his father most 
feared — the power of skilful prevarication, 
which is always something closely akin to 
positive falsehood. 

And yet Ralph’s first outspoken untruth 
came to his mother, as well as to his father, 
like a sudden lightning flash out of a sky be- 
fore unclouded. And then, it is pitiful to 


(48) 


HONORIA. 


49 


tell, but in the matter of reproof, the mother 
blamed the father for harshness — the father 
blamed the mother for indulgence. It is just 
one of those old stories of parents paying the 
penalty of not sharing in open-hearted sym- 
pathy in the training of their children. 

Ralph clung with the obstinacy of timidity 
to that first uttered falsehood, and from being 
a thing by itself, it^became of well-nigh daily 
occurrence in some form of misrepresentation, 
if not of actual untruth. 

No other fault in the boy could have so 
tried Squire Lambert, for the having a son 
lacking in a keen sense of honor and steadfast 
truthfulness — morbid as he continued to be 
about his own early trial — seemed to him almost 
like a voice declaring those who had doubted 
him, would feel assured they had been right — 
their proof — the fact that he, Allen Lambert, 
was the father of a child untruthful from 
babyhood. 

As the fault increased, the friction between 
the Squire and Ralph increased ; hence it 
seemed best that home-life should end early 


50 


HONORIA. 


for the lad, and when but twelve years of age 
he was sent to boarding-school, where he re- 
mained — except for the Holiday seasons — till 
school broadened into college. 

From college, Ralph graduated with a fair 
standing, and now — thus his mother thought 
— all would be well. The faults of child and 
babyhood overcome, father and son would 
meet as man meeting man. Points of sym- 

m 

pathy would daily open out between them, 
for Ralph loved study well enough not to find 
his father’s pursuits irksome. 

But the mother was disappointed. Again 
the father discovered an untruth, and again 
home-leaving followed the discovery. But this 
time Squire Lambert tried a new method. 
He would see what the reposing a grave trust 
in the youth would accomplish. 

And so, though Ralph was but twenty-two 
years of age, the Squire made over into his 
care an estate on the Island of Jamaica, a 
coffee plantation of great value. In the au- 
tumn Ralph sailed away to assume the trust, 
and when spring-time came he returned to 


HONORIA. 


51 


give account of his stewardship. But, alas ! 
the disappointment following that return was 
keener than any forerunning one. 

Enough, — there was a stormful scene in 
the Squire’s library one stormful spring night, 
and the next day Ralph Lambert left his 
father’s home never to enter it again. 

Such stories touch hearts too closely to tell 
them in detail. 

What the mother suffered only mothers can 
know. 

The year of his marriage, when Squire Lam- 
bert had fallen heir to the Island property, he 
had made one of the two plantations left him 
over to his wife. And stern though he was 
toward Ralph, he did not refuse Mrs. Lam- 
bert’s plea, that she should pass that richly 
yielding land on to her son. 

This was how, spite his father’s displeasure, 
Ralph Lambert became, while still young, a 
man of wealth. 

Not long after becoming owner of the plan- 
tation, he married, and sad as it is to tell, his 


52 


HONORIA. 


young wife soon learned the sorrowful side of 
life ; but joy came to her with the birth of the 
baby-girl — Honoria. 

A joy which lasted till the child was ten 
months old ; then a sudden illness prostrated 
the mother ; she rallied, but with only strength 
enough for the voyage to Boston, where she 
gave her child — a treasure dearer than her own 
life — into the charge of kind Mrs. Forbes, 
with the injunction to take the baby-girl to 
Mrs. Lambert. 

On the return voyage, the Angel of Life, 
through the gateway of mortal death, sum- 
moned the young mother — and with no more 
struggle than an infant falling asleep, her soul 
passed from the here to the blessed There — 
“ There — where the wicked cease from troub- 
ling, and the weary are at rest.” 

When the ship reached its mooring in Port 
Royal Bay, Ralph Lambert was among the 

first to step on deck. And then they told 

him — then he found only his wife’s silent 
form. 


And that very day, just after sunset, a new 


HONORIA. 


53 


grave was made in the fair Island of the sea, 
where the palms wave their branches, birds 
sing, and flowers bloom through the live-long 
days of the year. 

After this, years came and went, but they 
brought no summons from Ralph Lambert 
recalling his motherless child. Letters, too, 
were but seldom received from him, though 
faithfully Mrs. Lambert sent mother-words of 
love to the son, who, spite his years and 
his wandering, her heart still called my ain 
bairn.” 

Later — half a dozen years later — though in 
telling it now we run in advance of Honoria’s 
story — Ralph Lambert married again — this 
time an English girl, daughter of an officer 
stationed on the Island. And still later — the 
voices of little children were heard in that 
home, where Honoria had smiled her first 
baby smile. 

And now you know the outline story of the 
lives which fill the place of preface to Hono- 
ria’s history. Lives — as unlike hers, as sum- 
mer is unlike winter. 


VII. 


ERILY, leaving the by-gone pages and 



V returning to the story of a happy 
childhood is like passing from shadow into 
sunlight. 

And one of the traits we first linger to 
notice in the child Honoria, is perhaps one of 
the sweetest traits of childhood — for it is 
trust — that almost universal freedom from 
curiosity that is in any way akin to suspicion. 
So true this is that a suspicious child, thank 
God, is as rare as thunder in mid-winter. 

It certainly was so with Honoria, for she 
accepted the conditions of her life, as un- 
questionably as she accepted the coming of 
day and night, or changing seasons. 

She was always satisfied, too, even when she 
passed out of childhood, with her grand- 
mother’s replies to the few questions she 


( 54 ) 


HO NORM. 


55 


asked about the Island Home, where her 
father lived — and the Heaven, where her mo- 
ther was so happy with the Holy Angels. 

And yet from infancy her mind was eager 
with multiplying thoughts ; she never tired 
asking ‘‘How; and why; and what for?” — 
that trio of interrogations that compose so 
large a part of a child’s vocabulary. 

She was only a child, too, when her soul 
met the more subtle questions : “ What made 
her think ? Why did she love ? Why was it 
sometimes so hard to be good, sometimes so 
easy ? ” And underlying these queries, as the 
song of the sea underlies the surface waves, were 
undefined wonderings that at last grew into 
the questions — ‘ Whence came her delight in 
harmony of sound? her joy in beauty of form 
and color ? ’ 

What was the secret of opening flower-buds, 
and ripening fruit? The meaning of sun- 
shine one day, and storm the next ? — of win- 
ter frost and summer heat ? 

These queries were wisely answered by her 
grandparents, who, though they had failed so 


HONORIA. 


56 

sadly in the training of the boy Ralph, suc- 
ceeded rarely well in their guidance and gov- 
ernment of the child Honoria. 

As I said before, Harbor-town village was a 
remote hamlet, and the Squire and Mrs. Lam- 
bert’s lives so secluded, Honoria had no com- 
panions near her own age ; save an occa- 
sional visit from Pastor Warner’s son and 
daughter — Mary and Ambrose — and they 
were both several years older; yet she was 
never lonely, for, 

“ Solitude 

Is sweet society to her, who fills the air 
With gladness and involuntary song.” 

And this she did. 

Then, too, she had not yet felt the blank of 
a loved presence gone out of her daily life, 
and that is what makes aloneness of soul. For, 
how can we miss what we never have had ? 

Perhaps the fact that Honoria came to her 
grandfather’s home on a day of unclouded 
sunshine, and in the season of the year when 
flowers were wide-awake had something to do 


HONORIA. 


57 


with the Squire’s associating her with sunlight 
and blossoms — and explained why he chose 
to teach her from Nature’s outspread page, 
rather than from printed book of man’s com- 
piling. 

And surely, this was well ; for, remember. In- 
spiration sends us to the School of Nature — 
bidding us “consider the Ravens — for they 
are preachers of Him who feedeth them.” 

** Lord, according to Thy words, 

I have considered Thy birds : 

And I find their life good. 

And better the better understood. 


It cometh, therefore, to this. Lord ! 

I have considered Thy word. 

And henceforth will be Thy Bird.” 

“ Go to the ant — consider her ways and be 
wise ” — this is another of Nature’s lessons for 
us — and still another we find in the command 
— “ consider the lilies ” — “ for they have a 
silent eloquence more rich than words.” 

This is true of all blossoms — “ so true we 
are told it by a poet only half enlightened.” 

“ All flowers ” — thus he sings — 


58 


HONORIA. 


Are the alphabet of angels, whereby 

They write in hills and fields mysterious truths.” 

And the complete philosopher adds, that 
they are the alphabet not of angels, but of 
Godr 

“ Converse with Nature, then nor shrub, nor tree. 
Nor flower that to the sun its hues unfold. 

But breathes a text for some pure homily.” 

“ Yes, yes, — all have a voice, the heavens above, 
The earth beneath, and things that under earth 
Lie deeply hidden, — all send out a sound. 

And lecture man, the wandering and the lost. 

In holy lore.” 

To return to Honoria. If the child’s 
thoughts were by her grandfather’s teaching, 
guided in some measure by the wisdom culled 
from the Sacred Book — it was far more so 
in her intercourse with her grandmother. 

For, well-nigh half Mrs. Lambert’s replies 
to the child’s questions were framed in Bible 
words. Hence, when she asked of the sea and 
its wonders, the answer told of “ Him who 
hath measured the water in the hollow of His 
Hand “ Who hath compassed the sea with 
bounds.” When she asked, “ Why the light 


HONORIA. 


59 

of day, the darkness of night ? ” what better 
answer could be given than the words telling 
of ''the Lord who causeth the Light, and 
causeth it not to shine — the Lord whose mercy 
is in the Heavens, and His faithfulness over- 
reacheth unto the clouds ” ? 

This is a sample of Mrs. Lambert’s teach- 
ing. It was her way, too, to bid the child 
seek the best in everything and every one. 

“Always remember,” thus she taught, 
“ there is good in And if tares did grow 

among the wheat in human heart-gardens, 
Honoria’s task was “ still to seek the wheat.” 

The child’s soul responded to these lessons, 
just as it did to words often repeated by her 
grandmother ; in fact, long before she grasped 
their full meaning, memory traced the maxim 
on her mind’s tablet : “ Noble thoughts make 
noble acts ; a soul occupied with great ideas is 

best prepared for the smallest duties.” 

Truly a good maxim — opening out, too, 
toward the oft-quoted, yet never too well- 
known saying: “The divinest views of life 
penetrate into its meanest emergencies.” 


VIII. 


QUIRE LAMBERT was endowed with 



quick perceptions, and he soon dis- 
covered that while Honoria’s mind, like the 
air, was stirred by every breeze of thought, she 
was swayed, too, by rapidly changing moods. 

In teaching her, he paid reference to this, 
striving to interblend the grave and sombre 
with the light and joyous. 

Even in educating the child in the lore of 
the floral world, he caused to be planted in 
the same beds, flowers that were associated, 
some with bright, some with serious signifi- 
cance. 

Thus from almost infancy, as Honoria had 
walked the garden paths, hand in hand with 
her grandfather, she had learned not only 
about the flowers, but of their linkings, some- 
times with a bit of history, sometimes with a 


(6o) 


HONORIA. 


6l 


poet’s song — an old-time legend or wise man’s 
fable. 

Do you ask where Squire Lambert found 
history lessons? Why, the gay tulips were 
full of them — dating from the royal reign 
when first they were brought from Germany 
to England. Fuller still were the tufted blos- 
soms of sweet-scented mignonette. Squire 
Lambert never gathered a sprig of it without 
calling Honoria his “ Mignonette” — his “little 
darling ” — his flower of “ good cheer.” 

After these playful terms of endearment, 
he was wont to tell of Napoleon’s disastrous 
campaign in Egypt, and of the weary, foot-worn 
soldiers — rough, battle-marred men — and yet 
so tender-hearted that, when they inhaled the 
familiar fragrance of the home flower blossom- 
ing in a foreign land, they exclaimed in voices 
tearful with emotion : “ Little darling ” — 
“ Flower of good cheer.” 

To Honoria, with her active fancy, this 
story was like a picture ; and so firm a hold it 
took in her memory that, whenever she saw 
mignonette, all her life long, she always felt a 


62 


BONORIA, 


thrill of longing in her soul that she might in 
very truth be, like the simple bloom, a 
bringer of good cheer to soldiers in the weary 
battle-field of life. 

As for the so-called ‘common flowers,’ — 
“ snow-drops and crocuses ; polyanthus in red, 
trimmed with yellow ; homely, dusty miller, 
and sweet- alyssum, the little, cheerful floweret 
which the bee first finds — sweet-williams, 
star-like jonquils, and their golden-hued sister, 
daffodils,” they were all dear as friends to 
Honoria. And so were the yellow king-cups, 
huge crimson peonies, canterbury bells, sweet- 
peas, and iris, goddess of the rainbow. 

Yet, spite her fondness for all these, she 
loved the lowly growth best — the plants that 
were named for the virtues, and that in her 
thoughts were linked as types of St. Paul’s 
“ fruits of the Spirit.” 

Honesty, with its fearless purple blossom — 
Humility, the creeping plant that upsprings 
from the poorest soil, knowing no more of 
beauty than its insignificant unfolding of tiny 
white and yellow buds — Violets, the blue-eyed 


HONORIA. 


63 

field flowers, whispering content; and lilies, 
ringing bells of pure thoughts, chalices of 
sweet odor. 

As for the Hyacinth, it filled a place apart 
in Honoria’s mind like some holy thing; and 
she always nestled close to her grandfather 
and stole her little hand into his warm, strong 
clasp when she asked for the story of the 
Egyptian princess entombed for hundreds of 
years, and yet, found at last holding fast in her 
dead hand the hyacinth root — the root — ah ! 
the wonder of it, that when planted in mother 
earth sent forth green leaves and a blossom ! 

Honoria, long before she could have told 
why, was glad the time for hyacinths to bloom 
came in the spring — nature’s resurrection sea- 
son. Glad her grandfather called them, em- 
blems of Immortality, even though the word 
had a meaning as undefined to her young 
mind as the sound of the sea waves was 
undefined in her heart’s scale of music-full 
tones. 

No. Not till she knew what is meant by 
the saying, we die to live,” could she know 


HONORIA, 


64 

the meaning of a resurrection-flower. Never- 
theless, while waiting for this knowledge, she 
kept fresh in memory the hyacinth story ; and 
through it, I think, she caught an echo sound- 
ing from here to There — for — Heaven was 
never far off to Honoria Lambert. 

If these thoughts seemed sombre for a child, 
Honoria had merry enough associations with 
other flowers — especially with the larkspurs, 
purple and white, and full of meaning as the 
caroling bird in whose honor they were 
named. And the Squire never failed to teach 
bird as well as flower lessons when the lark- 
spurs were in bloom. — Lessons that, when 
Honoria was a tiny girl, almost always ended 
in her being sent to search for pheasant-eyes, 
the star-flowers, so like the bird’s eye. 

All this belonged to spring, summer, and 
early autumn ; but when winter came, it, too, 
brought a flower teaching ; for then, amid the 
snow and frost, the Christmas rose bloomed, 
and that rose is the crowning-flower parable 
of the year. 

But whatever the season, or its lesson, Hon- 


IIONORIA, 


65 

orla was happy, from early spring, when she 
strove to cover with her little foot '' nine vio- 
lets all at once,” that according to the Scotch 
legend she might have a right to sing : '' Sum- 
mer is coming, coming.”— Happy, on to the 
time when, like feathers from angel wings, 
snowflakes danced through the air from early 
morning on to nightfall. For truly “ the door 
in every heart which opens inward to God ” was 
never closed those days in Honoria's soul. 

Thus she lost none of the inheritance of 
either childhood or youth, for her thoughts 
were all sweet, pure, and childlike, using the 
word in the full meaning that is radiant with 
the light of the child-likeness our Saviour 
taught, even the happy freedom of the king- 
dom of Heaven. 

The kingdom of Heaven ! How true it is 
that kingdom is within each one of us — within 
you and within me ! Only we need to keep 
wide open the God-ward door of our souls 
if we are to walk in its blessed liberty. 

I walk at liberty because I keep Thy law.” 
Ah ! think of that Door, through which come 
5 


66 


ffONORIA. 


to us /ward, outwdixdj and /(/>ward looks — 
Three in One, One in Three.” And Christ 
said : “ I am the Door”; by Me, if any man 
enter in, he shall go in and out, and find pas- 
ture.” I will feed them in a good pasture, 
and upon the high mountains.” 

Remember, only keep your soul’s door 
open, and 

“ Thou shall summer high in bliss 
Upon the Hills of God.” 


IX. 

A s winter sometimes vanishes before 
spring, with no mid-way day of lessen- 
ing cold, so, with no more lingering over Hon- 
oria's early life, I will speed on to the time 
when she crossed the threshold leading from 
childhood to maidenhood. 

For — her sixteenth birth-day had come ! 
Life lay before her — a thing of promise. She 
was happy, light-hearted, and care-free. She 
knew no anxiety for the morrow — to-day held 
its own glad secret. 

Her soul was full of the sweet, unwritten 
music of youth. She believed in goodness. 
“The wine of life, the sense of progress” 
thrilled through her heart as wind stirs among 
tree-tops. 

Looking at her was like reading a poem 
of the soul, for her mortal face was bright 

( 67 ) 


68 


HONORIA. 


with the expression of the immortal. Hear- 
ing her speak was like listening to music, 
her voice was so soft and low and full of har- 
mony. While her laugh held the melody of 
a tuneful bell, it was so clear, so glad. And 
yet spite all the joyfulness, Honoria’s temper- 
ament had not altered, she still reminded one 
of a changing April day. For while one hour 
she was eager and enthusiastic as a wild bird 
soaring upward in the sunlight, the next she 
was gentle as a white dove that folds its 
wings, content to linger amid corn-fields, and 
low-lying meadows. While she was sensitive 
to the first hint of disapproval as a rose is to 
the first touch of frost, she yet possessed 
steadiness of thought and purpose. 

This combination of unlike traits added 
greatly to her winsomeness. It was as though 
in her soul poetry and prose were linked, but 
in all details connected with practical com- 
monplace duties, prose ever held poetry in 
subjection. 

When she was still hardly more than a 
child, her grandparents often wondered how 


HONORIA. 


69 

she could be so pliant, and yet so forcible in 
all that touched her sense of right and wrong ; 
so decisive and yet so gentle ; so thoughtful 
for others, so ready to excuse their failings, 
and yet so stern in judging herself. Her mind, 
too, seemed formed to rule, if when she en- 
countered life’s discipline her heart learned 
the true secret of submission. 

Squire and Mrs. Lambert both realized 
how much depended on that brief word if— 
for they knew without that knowledge no one 
ever yet really ruled in the broad sense that 
recognizes mere power; compelling obedience, 
is not the ruling of an uplifting influence, any 
more than the forcing others to use time is 
the helping them to the deeper meaning of 
redeeming it. 

For remember, in the phrase the command 
is, redeem time^ not merely use it, but trans- 
form it into eternity by living aright.” 


X. 


IXTEEN years old!’^ Thus Squire 



k_y Lambert said that August day, as he 
looked at the slight figure that was guiding 
with steady hand and well-trained eye, a 
white-winged boat amid the reefs and bolder 
rocks that out-jutted from the shore, north- 
ward of Harbor-town. 

‘‘ Sixteen years old ! ” twice he repeated 
the words — the second time adding : “ And 

she has no more knowledge of the ways of the 
world, than a bird that has never flown a rod 
from the home-nest.” 

As he ceased speaking, the Squire turned 
from the window toward Mrs. Lambert, who 
met his gaze with an eager questioning look, 
for full well she knew her husband’s words 
portended some change for Honoria. 

After half an hour’s discussion it was all 
settled, and even before the young girl turned 


HONORIA. 


71 


her light craft homeward, her grandfather 
had written and deposited in the mail-pouch, 
a letter addressed to the President of the 
then somewhat famous “ Summit Hill Semi- 
nary.” An institute in which Mary Warner 
had held a place as teacher for a year or 
more. 

And so what had been at noontime a mere 
seed-thought in the Squire’s mind, by night- 
fall had sprung up into an open flower. Such 
a brief time to encompass a decision which 
meant so much to Honoria. — But then it is 
wont to be so in life. Time is no measure of 
the magnitude of events and deeds. And — it 
is our recognition of this that makes plain for 
us how in God’s sight, “ a thousand years are 
but as one day.” It makes plain, too, how 
the separation from our dear ones gone to the 
Heavenly Home — these days and hours that 
seem so long to us who wait — to them are as 
nothing — for There they count no time. 

It was twilight when Honoria’s boat an- 
chored in the sheltered cove below the gar- 


HONORIA. 


72 

den wall. She had a venturesome afternoon, 
having accomplished a sail quite around the 
great Rock, the sailors called the Stormy 
Petrel,” because its outline as seen from the 
entrance of the Harbor had a strong likeness 
to the form of a huge bird. 

Her only companion was old Joe, the fish- 
erman, whose work-days were over, and whose 
chief delight consisted now in piloting the 
young girl in and out among the rocks and 
reefs, coves and bays of the coast, or when 
the day was clear, on some wider flight beyond 
the Harbor, out to the open sea. 

Stars were beginning to twinkle in the blue 
sky when Honoria bade Joe good-night. Her 
voice was so clear, her grandmother sitting on 
the porch distinctly heard the words — and 
then they mellowed off into the low refrain 
of a sea-song. 

As Honoria entered the garden, fire-flies 
were dancing from bush to bush. Stars of 
the air she used to call them when a child, 
and always they seemed to her friendly sparks 
of light flashing out radiance. 


HONOR! A, 


73 

She lingered to gather a handful of evening 
primroses — flowers her grandfather loved. 

“ Evening Primroses 

O’er which the wind may hover till it dozes— 

O er which it well might take a pleasant sleep, 
But that it is ever startled by the leap 
Of buds into ripe flowers.” 

Honoria knew the lines, but she did not 
think of them then — only afterward she re- 
membered, and they seemed so a type of the 
near change in her own life, the leap from 
home seclusion to school companionship, she 
always felt a tenderness for the mute little 
flowers they pictured — associating them with 
half an hour later when her grandfather told 
her his plan. 

She accepted it with a smile. She trusted 
him fully. He said “ She was to go — it was 
for her good.” And trust does not question. 
And, though the home leaving would be hard, 
there was no bitterness in the thought. 

Hence Honoria’s experience was like that 
which God’s dear children know when they 
accept trials cheerfully — be they little or 


74 


ffONORIA. 


great — for the trustful soul is bounded by 
the blessed assurance, God knows — and He 
loves.” 

Understand me, I do not say pain is gone 
when we submit and accept trouble, because 
in God’s wisdom we need it — but I say bitter- 
ness is gone. 

It is strange how much faith it takes to at- 
tain the serenity of childlike trust. Truly so 
much, “ only the power of God can enable us 
to support the will of God.” 

For long that night Honoria lay wide awake. 
From her bed she could look through the 
eastern window out toward the sea — and up 
skyward — and almost all the time her gaze 
was up. 

For while she knew but little of the science 
of the distant orbs, her heart could read the 
hieroglyphic of star and cloud, and was it not 
— thus she thought — by skyward looks the 
Lord led His children of old when He called 
them to walk in a new path ? — ‘‘ The Lord, 
who went in the way before them in a pillar 
of fire by night, and a pillar of cloud by day.” 


HONOR! A. 


75 

And Honoria found comfort in the thought," 
though full well she knew the time of visible 
manifestation had ceased long ago, except in 
the mystic way, by which stars shine to let 
glory through. 

When at last Honoria closed her eyes, the 
clock in the church tower, down in the Ham- 
let, was just ringing out a sharp note, that 
told one day had sped into another. Some- 
thing in the sound which came — a sequel to 
her thoughts as she had looked at the stars — 
made her repeat half aloud the prayer of the 
Breton mariner : Keep me, my God, my 
boat is so small, and Thy ocean is so 
wide.” The same spiritual influence, a min- 

ute later, caused her to softly whisper the chant 
of the sailor on Southern waters : Midnight 
is past — midnight is past, the cross begins to 
bend.” 

It was years before Honoria touched the 
full depth of meaning in the words — and yet 
from that hour, they never failed when she 
was troubled to shine like a beacon-light 
illumining her onward way. 


HONORIA, 


76 

This is not strange, for surely they are key- 
note words to the light of Thy will be 
done." 

Midnight is past — the cross begins to 
bend ! " 

Remember, it is to the cross that the 
heart must turn for that which reconciles it to 
all conflicts." And conflict, according to the 
Gospel record, deals with what we call “ little 
things, as well as with the great." 

Whoso is wise, will ponder these things, 
and he shall understand the loving-kindness 
of the Lord." 


XL 



HE weeks closely following Squire Lam- 


-L bert’s decision regarding Honoria’s 
future were so full of new thoughts and ex- 
periences, she playfully said they well might 
have spanned a year of life, rather than only 
one brief month of the twelve. 

There was so much to be done; certain 
studies she wanted, with her grandfather for 
guide, to go over once again. The winter out- 
fit, too, to prepare ; and the hundred other 
nameless things that press forward, claiming 
attention when one plans leaving home. 

Then Mrs. Lambert, with the quick intu- 
ition of a loving heart, felt, before Honoria 
entered on the unknown life of a large board- 
ing-school, it was important, as far as possible, 
to bring her into familiar friendliness with 
companions near her own age. 

And so the grandmother planned now one 


( 77 ) 


78 


HONORIA. 


pleasure and then another, and all of them in- 
cluded Mary Warner and her brother Am- 
brose ; he was home that season for his last 
vacation before launching on the full tide of 
independent manhood, which he was to do that 
very autumn. A solemn charge awaited him, 
for after ordination he was to be immediately 
installed as Pastor over a church in the north- 
ern part of Maine. 

Ambrose was twenty-six years old, and to 
Honoria, who had but just stepped across the 
threshold of sixteen, he seemed a middle-aged 
man. And she had in a certain way known 
him all her life long ; thus there was no charm 
of novelty in their intercourse — except its 
frequency. 

Certainly for her, those days held no hint 
of romance ; she saw nothing ideal in the tall, 
broad-shouldered, athletic youth, who was as 
strong of limb and muscle as the bough of a 
sturdy oak. Ambrose Warner was quick of 
motion, too, and eager in speech ; thought 
chased thought in his mind as swiftly as wave 
follows wave when the tide is in-coming. 


HONORIA. 


79 

This quickness, combined with earnestness 
and free expression of opinion, made the young 
man interesting to Squire Lambert, whose 
affections were so centered in Honoria, the 
mere fact that Ambrose mentally met her 
with responsive sympathy, made him a doubly 
welcome member of the pleasure parties. 

In truth, Ambrose did understand her, better 
even than her grandfather did ; but to Mary 
Warner, Honoria was always a problem. She 
not only thought her unconventional, but some- 
times little more than a mere poetic dreamer. 

This Ambrose never thought, for he recog- 
nized the something deeper than fancy in 
Honoria’s utterances; he had a clearness, of 
insight that enabled him to see beyond her 
playful words, the glow of a vital spirit of 
true earnestness ; and this gave him power to 
guide her thoughts on — and upward. 

September dawned and ended that year, a 
month of rare days, when the air was just crisp 
enough with breezy freshness to supply a 
tonic rich with the aroma of strength and 
stimulant for physical exertion. 


8o 


HONOR! A. 


Squire Lambert felt the exhilaration in 
every fibre of his being. He had always been 
like a barometer in his sensitiveness to the 
changes of weather, and those days of glad 
sunshine his whole nature seemed for the time 
to expand with something of his early light- 
heartedness. 

He had, too, a somewhat unusual ability in 
measuring the compass of another’s mind, 
and this gave a zest to his enjoyment of Am- 
brose’s society ; for he realized, spite the crude- 
ness of youth, and half-developed deduction of 
thought, yet — ‘‘ not what others think for us, 
but what we are able to think for ourselves is 
the true life of our life.” And think for him- 
self Ambrose Warner undoubtedly did. 

And so the older man held in favor the 
younger’s original out-look of mind, a mind in 
which there was naught stereotyped any more 
than there was in Honoria’s thoughts and ex- 
presssions. 

I will only tell the story of one of those 
pleasure-full days — for that one will serve as 
an index to them all — though it was on this 


IIONORIA. 


8i 


special day that Honoria hearkened to a con- 
versation that took so deep a root in her 
heart, it influenced her all the after-years of 
her life. 

It was a day they spent from early morning 
till near nightfall among the hills — and so 
far their flight reached, it led inland for a 
stretch of full fifteen miles as the crows fly. 

Sunrise was the starting hour. The party 
numbered only four — Squire Lambert and 
Honoria, Ambrose and Mary Warner. 

The Squire held the reins, and skilfully 
guided the fleet-footed roadsters, that he had 
trained from frisky colts, and that, sober 
horses though they had become, had yet lost 
none of their fleetness, but sped along the 
shore-road like winged steeds ; for the way did 
not turn inland and up-hill till just beyond 
‘‘ Five-Mile Point — then it led away from the 
salt-marsh meadows, over which, at that hour, 
there rested a white light fog, while the wil- 
lows, alders, and tall grass that skirted the 
meadows rustled in the morning breeze. 

Over the far-off hills, too, a dim vapor 
6 


82 


HONORIA. 


> hung, through which they were only trem- 
ulously visible. 

But it is not of nature I want to tell, and 
yet nature helped unfold the thought-truths 
that dawned that day for Honoria. It is wont 
to be thus, for when we “read nature,” we find 
“ nature is the friend of Truth.” — And Truth 
is the Word — “and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God.” 

“Thy Word is Truth. 

“Science with humble reverence repeats, ‘Thy 
Word is Truth.’ 

“ History takes up the refrain, and re-echoes back 
the sentiment, ‘Thy Word is Truth.’ 

“ Thy Word is Truth. And may all mankind from 
pole to pole, with one voice also exclaim, ‘ Thy Word 
is Truth.’” 


XII. 



I would tell in detail Honoria’s 


-I- experience that autumn day — and yet, it 
hardly needs detailing, for its history is but a 
duplicate of that which comes to all earnest 
natures. A deepening of the sense of the pro- 
foundly earnest thing life is. An hour, after 
which the soul is felt as it never has been be- 
fore. How strange this is, even though so 
commonplace— and how as years come and 
go, laden though they be with heart-stirring 
events, memory yet turns to these dawning 
hours of the soul’s birth. 

It is but a yesterday by-gone, when I lis- 
tened to a company of friends discussing 
this very subject. 

One, a grave man, who had struggled with 
the problem of life — the mystery of permitted 
wrong, permitted suffering — told how his years 
crounted twelve before he came to the hour, 


84 


HO NORM. 


after which he recognized self-hood — the 
apartness of every human soul. 

This is his story : 

It was a mid-summer day ; he was lying on 
the grass, resting in the shade of a shadowy 
elm-tree, and looking up meanwhile through 
the lace-like intwining of leaf and twig into 
the infinite depth of blue sky — when, like 
the tenderness of a smile, the love of a caress, 
across the blue expanse a soft, white, vapory 
cloudlet floated — and, so mysterious are 
God’s dealings — a before unknown feeling of 
awe filled the spirit of the boy. 

The depth of blue, the floating cloud, 
seemed in a moment traced with a sacred 
meaning, it was like an open in-look into the 
Unseen. 

An hour later, driving the cows home from 
pasture, — for he was a farmer’s lad — when he 
passed again by the brook path, across the 
same meadow, beneath the same tree, he 
knew he had a soul — life had dawned for 
him. 

As this tale ended, a lady caught up the 


HONORIA. 


85 

idea, and recounted her remembrance of stand- 
ing when a child in the solemn stillness of the 
hush that pervades the Poets’ Corner in Eng- 
land’s Westminster, when suddenly the si- 
lence was broken by a soft note from the old 
Abbey organ ; a strain of music that seemed to 
her an echo of some Heavenly chime, and inter- 
blended with the harmony came an illumining 
of her mind which kindled the light of her soul. 

Afterward others of the company recalled 
experiences, but they nearly all were but dif- 
ferent versions of the Sun -loving Qytie’s 
legend — or of the fairy Undine ; one day the 
soulless — the next the soul-full maiden of the 
sea. — And these latter records were empty of 
the deep heart of earnestness that made the 
first recitals akin to our Honoria’s experience. 

Thinking of this mystery — the unseen 
spiritual working of mind and soul, — I some- 
times wonder, — as there is a two-fold, rather 
a hundred-fold fulness of meaning linked with 
every parable truth of our Saviour s Gospel 
message — may not the grain of mustard-seed 
include with its well-known significance a 


86 


HO NOKIA. 


thought, too, of this spiritual quickening, which 
like the morning dew on opening flower- 
buds, falls from Heaven on young hearts when 
their waking-time comes ? 

According to the soil of the heart-garden 
the seed would grow. Good soil yielding 
spiritual strength, expanding into a living 
soul — full, as all living souls must be, of 
sweet charities, and earnest aspirations, till 
verily the “ birds of the air " find resting- 
places on the far out-reaching branches — for — 
what are the birds of the air ” in Bible 
metaphor but human hearts ? 

But all this has naught to do with Honoria 
Lambert, that day, when she ranked, accord- 
ing to the poet, 

“ The fairest flower in the garden of crea- 
tion — a young, opening mind.” 

And now remember my story dates before 
Tennyson had penned his tale of the Holy 
Grail — and the knights of Arthur’s Court — 
before Lowell had sung of Sir Launfal, or 
George Macdonald of Sir Galahad, hence 
there were no words from their poems in which 


HO NORM. 87 

Squire Lambert and Ambrose Warner could 
frame their talk of the search for the Grail. 

It was a theme to stir the Squire ; from 
youth he had loved research, and during the 
lonely years spent in the secluded Harbor- 
town home, many and many were the legends 
and myths he had traced to their starting- 
place in the far-away ages — and none among 
them had filled his mind with interest like 
• those of the San Grail — for none “so turned 
from the outer life into the inner, and raised the 
latter to its highest level ” — none so “ ennobled 
with a sacred radiance the work-day world.” 

That Ambrose was strongly moved by the 
Squire’s words was not strange, for though 
my story belongs to a time so far off, even 
then the pulse of the present had begun to 
beat in men’s minds. And to the young man, 
knowing, as he did, something of the world of 
letters, the “ Arthur myths were as something 
real, something significant — a part of his own 
time and thought.” 

More so, because he had in his nature no 
small measure of “ that chivalry which made 


88 


HONORIA. 


him none the worse a man, rather the better 
and the nobler.” 

Yes, it was natural enough that Ambrose 
should be thus interested ; but why did the 
heart of Honoria flutter as never before? 
Why did she feel like a caged bird who would 
fain soar away from the home-nest of familiar 
thought into purer, clearer air ? 

For an answer listen to the Squire’s words — 
and I know no better way of passing them on 
than by quoting, as he did, from one who 
wrote of those early myths : Perhaps we 
may discover that they taught in Parables — 
that their harps were tuned to give forth 
chords of which the keynote was appreciated 
but by the few, or which perhaps is only now 
sounding in the ears of a later generation.” 

Be this as it may, “ Surely in the Grail le- 
gends there may be traced deep lessons of high 
thought and theological teaching, and a spir- 
itual elemertt that gives, as it were, two lives 
to the Poems — even as the outer and inner life 
of man make up the perfect being.” 

It was this double fullness that Honoria 


HONORIA. 


89 

caught, like an undertone sounding in her 
grandfather’s words, and that thrilled her soul, 
and like a song held a place there ever after — 
which is not to'be wondered at— for, “ What 
is the search for the Holy Grail but a sort of 

mediaeval Pilgrim’s Progress ? ” 

It was the outline of Wolfram von Eschen- 
bach’s poem of ‘ Parzival’ Squire Lambert 
told his young listeners— beginning with the 
opening lines : 

“ Is doubt a neighbor to the heart ? 

That to the soul must be a smart. 

Disgrace and honor bide ' 

As equals, side by side, 

In the strong man and bold 
Like magpies hue twofold. 

Yet may he joyful be, 

When unto both sides free 
To heaven and to hell. 

But when he’s false and fell. 

Then black ’s his hue in verity. 

And now to darkness standeth he : 

So he who steadfast is, and right. 

Holds only to the color white. 

This flying parable, I wis. 

Too fast for silly people is : 

The earnest come the meaning nigh. 

Since it before their minds will fly 
Even as flies a frightened hare.” 


90 


HONORIA. 




Honoria and Ambrose both recognized a 
something earnest and lofty in sentiment in 
the lines, and that something was the thought 
in the poet’s mind that goes far beyond its 
external form. 

And this they felt as the Squire continued 
to outline sketch after sketch, portraying the 
search for this “ San Grail, supposed by many 
to be the cup from which the Lord Christ 
drank at the last supper with the disciples.” 

The story of Parzival, of which he had re- 
peated the prelude, led into Wales — and then 
to Norway — where Parzival’s father dies, leav- 
ing his solitary queen the one child, whom she 
brings up as a peasant boy. 

As boyhood passes into youth, the lad feels 
the longing of young manhood for adventure 
and intercourse with the gay and valiant 
knights of whom he hears. At last his mother 
lets him go forth, but first she arrays him in 
a fool’s cap and bells. Adventure follows ad- 
venture, till Parzival finds himself at Arthur’s 
Court, when an old knight detects his kingly 
birth, and teaches him courtly manners, and 


HONORIA. 


9 ^ 


then sends him forth in search of renown, giv- 
ing but one caution — and that, not to ask many 
questions. At last Parzival, tiring of adven- 
ture, returns to visit his mother, and on his 
way comes to a Castle by a Lake, wherein are 
assembled the King and four hundred knights 
— all gathered around a table, where they are 
fed by the miraculous power of the Holy 
Grail, which the Queen places upon the table. 

The King has been severely wounded — his 
knights are sorrowing; but Parzival asks no 
questions — only on leaving, he hears too late, 
that he has been in the Castle of the Grail, 
and should have asked the King the cause of 
his wound. 

Soon after this Arthur, hearing of Parzival’s 
exploits, makes him a member of the “ Round 
Table” — then follow the adventures of Parzi- 
val in search of the Grail, during which he 
performs many deeds of bravery, struggle, and 
self-denial. 

At last, it is announced to him at Arthur s 
table, that he has been chosen King of the 
Grail — whereupon he goes to the Castle by 


HONORIA. 


92 

the Lake — his first deed there the healing of 
the wounded King. 

This is but a brief summary of the old 
legend ; but tell me, is it not a parable? 

To Honoria it was — and a revelation, too, 
of a pure, noble, aspiring soul, to whom the 
Grail was the symbol of a loftier life.” Not 
that she grasped this all at once. No ; it 
needed years, laden with the lessons life 
teaches, before she fully understood the 
“ spiritual meaning shining through the lines 
of the old Poem.” — A Poem with which she 
became as familiar as though it had been writ- 
ten in her own native language. When at 
last she did touch its full meaning, she found 

that peace of soul comes only through faith 
and obedience.” 

Playfully, that day, as they rode through 
the forest, her grandfather said he would give 
her a maxim from the old song with which to 
encircle her home-leaving. The lines he gave 
were : 

“ Shun untravelled road : 

Leave dark ways untrod ; 

If they are sure and fair. 

Enter and journey there.” 


HO NOKIA. 


93 

And then, with more of tenderness than he 
was wont to let sound in his voice, the Squire 
softly added lines Honoria knew full well he 
meant for her too : 

“ The Grail — it was all-glorious, fair, 

Beyond perfection earth can lend.” 

And : 

“ She who bore it must be pure — 

Of just and perfect heart, and strong. 

To frighten falsehood, sin, and wrong.” 

Now you know the spirit of that morning 
talk which so influenced Honoria. And out 
of it grew that which followed later on ; but 
between times, there were silent places and 
merry chats, — and a long lingering for lunch, 
which Mary Warner and Honoria spread 
under the shadow of a huge pine that had 
carpeted the low, stunted grass at its base with 
soft pine needles, rich in resinous odor. 

It was a bountiful lunch, and they were a 
hungry group, who did full justice to the 
dainties Mrs. Lambert had prepared. 

After lunching, came an hour or more of 


94 


HONORIA. 


rest, not only for themselves, but for the 
tired horses, too, which Ambrose unloosened 
from restraining strap and harness, fastening 
them by the long reins to a tree, where they 
were within reach of a gfassy plot, green and 
fresh as a June meadow. 

Meanwhile, Honoria brought rug and cush- 
ion from the carriage and made a pillow for 
her grandfather, who had already lighted his 
cigar and was reclining on a mossy ledge of 
rock. 

As for Mary Warner, she was busy with 
thread and needle — her work a delicate bit of 
embroidery, that was to brighten the some- 
what sombre frock her mother was making 
over ” for the third time. 

Honoria’s rest was quite different ; it did 
not seek bodily repose, for it was found in 
action, and the delight of beholding the 
beauty outspread before her, whichever way 
she turned ; and so she wandered from one 
spot to another, while all the time her mind 
was full of thought, her heart full of feeling, 
and 


HONOR! A. 


95 


“ Thought is deeper than all speech ; 

F eeling deeper than all thought.” 

Ambrose watched Honoria s graceful figure 
as she flitted to and fro, one moment in 
shadow, the next in sunshine. And — as he 
watched, suddenly there dawned upon him 
that which made life seem a gladder thing 
than ever he had dreamed before. And yet, 
never once, during that or the autumn days 
which followed, did he by look or word give a 
hint of what that hill-top excursion had re- 
vealed to his own heart. 

Not even when he and Honoria went in 
search of the forest-hid lakes, — the goal of 
their trip — the Squire finding himself too 
tired for the rough scramble over rock and 
brooklet, through brush-wood and tangled 
vines — and Mary calling herself quite too 
busy to waste more time in pleasure-seeking. 

But was it wasting time? As unconsciously 
as a bird sings, Honoria asked question after 
question as she and Ambrose climbed the 
steep up-hill path. From a child she had been 
wont, when excited by pleasure, to be eager 


HONORIA. 


96 

after the why ” — and it was natural for her 
to ask, ‘‘Tell me, what is the secret by which 
Nature’s beauty has the power to make one 
so happy? ” 

Equally natural was it for Ambrose to 
answer from the level of his studies during 
the last session at the Seminary. 

And so he took up Honoria’s question, and 
carried it back to the time when the Hebrew 
poet saw “ in the beauty of holiness ” a close 
analogy to the beauty of the visible world. 

A feeling shared by the Greeks, Ambrose 
explained, for while “they made beauty a 
chief object of life, they regarded the beauti- 
ful as so near a symbol of the good, it became 
identified with it, till the two words were 
hardly distinguished.” 

Eagerly Honoria listened, as he continued 
to tell her, how “in modern language we de- 
scribe natural beauty by terms derived from 
our vocabulary of moral excellence.” 

And — how true this is — think but for a 
moment of the twofold use to which we apply 
the simple terms — “lovely, noble, pure, ten- 
der, glorious, happy, grave, solemn.” 


honoria. 


97 

“ What does all this indicate,” asked Am- 
brose, in a voice that thrilled with interest, 
“ but that ‘ we are justified in reflecting back 
upon the Author of Nature, the One of all 
perfection, the ideas which we derive from 
the contemplation of what is admirable in 
Nature, only transferring them from a physi- 
cal to a moral sense.’ ” 

And with an impetuosity like the rush of a 
mountain torrent, the young man added, 
Once admit that natural beauty is symboli- 
cal of God, and it will read a lesson at every 
turn on the tenderness, the harmony, the 
nobility, and the glory of the Infinite King.’ ” 
As Ambrose ceased speaking, a sudden turn 
in the rough path brought them to the border 
of the first of the mountain lakes. An ex- 
panse of water, blue and calm as the azure 
depth above — a fitting mirror for Ambrose’s 
words. 

And they each saw reflected in that “ still 
water” the thoughts their own hearts held— 
for always we find in large measure that which 
we bring with us. Hence it is that the world 
7 


HO NOKIA. 


98 

is shadowed or brightened by our own hearts, 
rather than by anything of itself. Our joy 
makes the cloudiest day glad, and our grief 
finds night in the sunniest day.’^ 

And that day had held for Ambrose War- 
ner and for Honoria Lambert too, a crisis time 
in the history of their souls, — a time which 
had opened out for them broad acres, as it 
were, of before unknown aspirations and ex- 
pectations. For, verily, they had both heard 
echoes from the Beyond, and caught, in more 
than a poetical sense, glimpses of ^^a New 
Heaven and a New Earth.’* 


XIII. 


rr^HE shadows of the pines were lengthen- 
ing as they started on their homeward 
way. When they reached the valley, and 
turned for one last look at the hills, the dim 
vapor that had hung over them like a veil in 
the early morning, had gathered again. But 
now, illumined by the westering sun, it shone 
a golden mist that wrapped hill-tops and deep 
gorges, rocky clefts and forest trees all in one 
mysterious glow, that melted into shadowy 
lights. 

The bank-sides, edging the road, were pro- 
fusely rich in flowers, while a rippling stream, 
below the bank, went singing on its way sea- 
ward. 

In truth, everything, and everywhere 
seemed instinct with beauty, and alive with 
thought— even the very leaves seemed to 
Honoria, to nod good-night as the gentle 
breeze played among the tree-boughs. 

(99) 


100 


HONORIA. 


But the special glory of the hour was the 
revelation of colors that rested on the farm 
lands that lay spread out at the base of the 
hills, — a billowy succession of corn-fields, 
bathed in the exquisite tints of sunset that 
fell across them in a shimmer of golden sheen 
— bringing out in sharp contrast the deep 
green of some lowly growing, and yet none 
the less nourish-full harvests. 

As a sequel to all this inland glory, came 
the turn at “ Five-Mile Point,” after which 
their way led farther and farther from the 
hills and forests, the meadows and the ri- 
pened harvest, away toward the sea, and the 
glimmer of lights already beginning to shine 
in the windows of Harbor-town homes. 

Going home ! Why is it always like a 
metaphor of life? — We never come to the 
turning place, that we do not find the last 
half shorter than the first ! We go down 
hill so much quicker than we go up ! 

The village clock was striking eight, 
when Mary and Ambrose Warner opened the 
garden gate, and stood on the well-worn steps 


HONORIA. 


lOI 


of the parsonage threshold, watching the 
carriage speed down the quiet street— and 
catching the echo of Honoria’s clear-toned 
voice, as she called a twice-repeated Good- 
night and happy dreams.” 

And so the day had come to its close. — 
The day — when just between the rising and 
the setting of the sun, Honoria Lambert 
glided out of childhood into — Life. 

“ Life ! 

“ A burst of golden sunshine, 

A whispering of the leaves, 

A music-ripple on the brook, 

A joy, a wonder in each nook : 

A sweeping shadow o’er the land, 

A flashing of the tree-tops, 

A crimsoning of the lake, 

A peaceful mildness in the air, 

A thought of hidden mysteries there, 

A glorious fading of the sun — 

A summer day is done. 

** A joy in childhood’s playthings, 

A casting them aside ! 

A flash of golden youthhood’s hour 
When joy breaks through the passing shower : 
A castle building in the air : 

A cherished hope departed ! ' 


102 


BONORIA. 


A smile, a joy, a doubt, 

A gleam reflected from the past : 
A sigh upon its bosom cast : 

A mystery of a world unknown ; 
And then a soul has flown 






PART II 




“ Seeking, ever seeking, 

Like the children, I have won 

A guerdon all undreamt of 
When first my quest begun. 

And my.thoughts come back like wanderers. 
Out-wearied, to my breast ; 

What they sought for long they found not, 
Yet was the Unsought best. 

For I sought not out for crosses, 

I did not seek for pain ; 

Yet I find the heart’s sore losses 
Were the spirit’s surest gain.” 




I. 


"TTTE have come to a time in Honoria 
V y Lambert’s history, when it seems best 
that my recital should occasionally give place 
to her own record of life’s unfolding. 

And yet, there are no carefully-kept diary 
pages to offer you, for her record is fragmen- 
tary ; in many a place you will need to seek 
the meaning between the lines— and like all 
stories of life, you must sometimes read and 
read ” if you would touch its heart. 

Extracts from letters I think give the fullest 
in-looks into her soul — and the truestiglimpse 
of how the motives that ruled her inner-life 
shone in the outward with a Gospel light. 

The first from which I copy bears the date 
of a day as closely following her departure 
from home as to-morrow follows yesterday. 
And it is all aglow with the gladness of her 
young life, when every chord over which her 

(105) 


io6 


ffONORIA, 


heart played gave out a musicful strain. 
Which was well — for youth is the time for 
music and sunshine. And yet, when storms 
come in youth, as they do now and then, as 
they did later on to Honoria — these first 
storm-clouds, even though they be transient, 
seem for the time darker than clouds ever do 
again. 

Is it because the soul has not yet voyaged 
far enough on the wide ocean of existence for 
it to see above the clouds? Is it only the toil- 
worn mariners — who know of tempest and 
wreck — who know, too, up and beyond the 
storms and clouds that enfold the coast-line 
of earth, the blue is unclouded, peaceful, 
and calm, just as the deep sea below the dash- 
ing surface-waves is still ? Or is the secret 
of this knowledge bounded by the soul’s 
sailing out of the harbor, but toward the 
Haven ? 

Knowledge — remember, it does not include 
Sight. What a difference there is between 
the two — “ We know in whom we believe,” 
but for sight we wait. Ah, yes 


HO NOKIA. 


107 


“ We wait as we must ; 

Thank God that our eyes are so dim ! 

'Twould rob this poor life of some sweetness of 
trust 

To look in the future with Him, 

We’d rather be blind with His word for repose, — 

* Thy strength as thy day shall unfold ’ — 

Than see the great seals of His knowledge unclose, 
And the scroll of our future unrolled.” 


II. 


“ Bee-Hive Seminary, October 2dy 

T hus reads the heading of Honoria’s 
first letter after her arrival at Summit 

Hill Academy and it begins — 

My Own Dear Grandparents : — Here I am, 
safe and well — only yesterday with you — 
to-day so far away! — My waking thought 
was the query: Will it always be thus in 
life ? that time, counted by hours and min- 
utes, will span but a brief space, while counted 
by miles, that bridge distance dividing loving 
hearts ; oh, it seems so vast a thing. 

But — I do not like that word divide, for 
nothing can do that. This fact makes so 
large a part of the gladness of loving — the 
real you and me^ why, dear grandpapa and 
grandmamma, we are close together still — 
only, I want sight and touch, for I did 
so miss the good-night and good-morning 

(io8) 


honoria. 


109 

kiss that have always been my daily bless- 
ing.”— Thinking of these dear greetings as 
blessings, I seem to know now, that they 
have been in a certain way what my heart 
has meant, when I have asked for daily 
bread.”— it has so nourished and fed me 
all my life long. 

And I know love encompasses your Hon- 
oria still, for prayer is not bounded by earthly 
near or farness— and it can enfold me here 

as truly as if I were with you. And yet, 

oh ! I have met so m^x\y yets, even the little 
way I have journeyed in life. 

Tell me, dear grandmamma, if I live long, 
and become good and patient like you— if I 
find the San Grail, grandpapa will know what 
I mean — will I be satisfied to leave the puz- 
zling yets and whys} Will I be content 
with spiritual sight? Now, I do want every- 
thing to be visible and tangible. 

But I suppose, in the Bible, where it is 
promised “the pure in heart shall see,” it 
only refers to the spirit — for purity is some- 
thing that so belongs to the spiritual, just as 


no 


HONORIA. 


fragrance belongs to flowers — a subtle es- 
sence like beauty, that we can not grasp or 
frame in words. All else — except their odor— 
is so touchable and seeable about flowers. 
Their delicate grace of form, and wonder of 
color, it is all easy to understand — or at least 
plain in a certain way. But fragrance — why, 
we can no more catch and hold it up to gaze 
on, than we can catch the breath of June 
roses, that comes floating in through open 
doors and windows, like some sweet song 
without words. 

But this is not the sort of letter you will 
want ; and I have but ten minutes left for 
writing before the time will come for me to 
go to the first of the dreaded examinations, 
that must be passed before I can be enrolled 
as a true member of Summit Hill Semi- 
nary ! — 

Ten minutes ! in which to tell of an all- 
day’s journey — and such a day ! A dream of 
beauty, every hour of it. 

I am glad it was the very first day of Na- 
ture’s royal-robed month, October, that 


HONORIA. 


Ill 


grandpapa chose for my first home-leaving, 
glad my destination was to this town, where 
is located the far-famed “ Bee- Hive,” for thus 
they call this rambling red-brick building. 

You will smile, and think I am glad about 
everything ; and so I am — even that rain fell 
the night before we started. For, at sunrise, 
when Mary Warner and I left the skiff at 

Five-Mile Point,” and took the coach for 
our inland journey, every growing thing was 
sparkling, as though the rain-drops were 
jewels that had been scattered with a lavish 
hand. And so they were, 

“ For, not one drop 

Falls from the clouds upon the bare hill-top. 

Falls through dark hours 

Upon the closed chalice of the flowers, 

Or on the sea. 

Or on the murmurous, thickly-foliaged trees, 

But falls to cherish 

What else would pine, and drooping, sadly 
perish.” 

I wonder will grandmamma remember this 
song of the rain. She taught it to me when 
I was only a little girl. But it was not in my 


II2 


HONORIA. 


mind that night as I listened to the rhythmic 
music of the patter, patter, against my win- 
dow-pane. No, I was then, wide awake with 
the new thoughts that had come to me, dur- 
ing that excursion when we went to the 
hills, and Ambrose Warner and I found 
their heart — the lakes. 

Legend and myth that grandpapa had told, 
kept trooping through my mind, just as birds 
come flying northward with the first hint of 
spring, or like cloudlets that gather and play 
across the horizon an hour before sunrise. 

My soul — I think it is only just beginning 
to look over the horizon ; for thoughts, hopes, 
and plans for the future, they are all unde- 
fined and shadowy like the before-sunrise 
cloudlets. And — somehow, I feel, since 
through hearing the legend of the Holy Grail, 
I have been brought to this dawning of morn- 
ing in my soul, so it will illumine light for the 
mid-day of life. I wonder — will it kindle a 
twilight glow too ? 

“ At evening-time it shall be light.” Is this 
a special promise for those who find the holy 
thing ? And — will I find it ? 


HONOR lA. 


II3 

But, there goes the clanging bell of the 
Academy, and I must away to the dreaded 
ordeal. 

Mary \yarner looked grave as an owl when 
I told her how I feared this public examina- 
tion, and she said, “ All will be well, if you do 
not fly off on one of your quests after the 
fVAjy.” And, laughingly, she added, “ For once 
be content to let three times seven count 
twenty-one, without seeking the mystical 
significance of the sacred number.” 

I wish Mary understood me. How can I 
help being like myself? God made people 
unlike one the other, just as He made flowers 
of different color, form, and fragrance. And 
if my poor little mind has an interrogation 
point just before it,” Mary’s may be controlled 
by thoughts marked by a comma — while our 
next neighbor’s may abound in exclama- 
tions ” or full periods.” And why should this 
difference in minds make any more confusion 
than the different points make on a printed 
page, where the very difference is needed to 
bring out the meaning? 

8 


HONORIA, 


II4 

Mary would say to this — “ True enough, but 
there are many, many more commas and semi- 
colons, too, than interrogations — and the many 
stand for the commonplace people to whom it 
is wise to seek to belong.” And I know she 
would add in her practical way — “The fact 
that the commas and semi-colons are in so 
much more frequent use is proof positive that 
tliey accomplish the most.” 

Well, I suppose she is right — and yet, her 
brother Ambrose finds a question in almost 
every thought, for his mind is as full of inter- 
rogations as an ear of corn is full of golden 
kernels. 

But the bell is tolling, and without delay I 
must obey its summons — so this time I will 
truly away — away. 

Later. — The examination is over! And — I 
blundered all the way through. I am so un- 
used to strange faces, it all bewildered me. 

The Hall was full — the teachers sitting to- 
gether on a slightly raised platform — while we 
scholars were ranked before them according to 


HONORIA. 


II5 

age first, and then according to our scholar- 
ship. 

I will not write ^the details, for Prof. Stuart 
said he would send a full report to grandpapa- 
And now a dear good-night, and bless me 
and love me — and oh ! I do not like this edu- 
cational process; so please let it end soon, 
and call me home to learn again of the trees 
and the flowers, the sea and the sky— call me 
home. . 


III. 


ROF. STUART’S letter, with its report 



JL of what Honoria called her ^‘blunders,” 
caused Squire Lambert to smile more than 


once, 


And yet, as he handed it» to Mrs. Lambert, 
he only said, The Professor seems to under- 
stand the child.” A comment, that even in 
its brevity meant much to the loving grand- 
mother, for she well knew that Honoria’s was 
not an easy nature to grasp. 

She was like a harp ” — thus Mrs. Lambert 
was wont to describe her — She gave forth 
music in response to every touch, so sweet, 
healthful, pure, and true was the young girl’s 
soul ; and yet, as is the way with all pro- 
foundly earnest souls, there was a side to her 
that only a few would ever know. 

For there are so few in this world who can 
interpret ^‘without words” another’s soul — 


(ii6; 


HO NOKIA. 


II7 

and there is so much in all of us that needs 
this tender spiritual interpretation. 

Sometimes I wonder, does the power to 
thus discover “ the rhythm of the soul ” solve 
the mystery of why love seems to our limited 
sight so strange in its out-going? Soul seeks 
soul — and when this blessed in-sight is 
granted, then the outer form becomes no 
more than the frame which encircles some 
treasured picture. And we no more think of 
calling the frame the picture, than we think of 
calling the body the soul. Nevertheless, we 
are glad of a well-chosen frame that helps to 
reveal the picture’s charm, just as we are glad 
when outward beauty helps reveal the soul 
we call our dearest. 

It was something of this subtle soul per- 
sonality that Prof. Stuart immediately dis- 
cerned in Honoria Lambert — while the lady 
principal of the Academy — Mrs. Manning — saw 
only a somewhat timid girl, untrained in sys- 
tematic thought ; a girl far too eager in her 
quest for the root of knowledge to appreciate 
and rest satisfied with thoughts formulated 


ii8 


HON OKI A, 


and made plain by text-book and manual — 
and hence a maiden who, according to Mrs. 
Manning’s idea, would not prove a comfort- 
able pupil, able to recite page after page with- 
out misplacing a word. 

But, from the very first hour of their meet- 
ing, to Prof. Stuart, Honoria was the scholar of 
scholars among the fifty new-comers of that 
opening term. 

Did his heart even then divine that she 
would become the maiden of maidens, too ? 

Prof. Stuart was a middle-aged man — this 
seemed hardly likely. But then, life is full of 
unlikely events — and this is a life-story. 


IV. 


EXTRACTS FROM HONORIA’S JOURNAL. 

I AM trying to spin a mental analysis — its 
subject, the company of school-girls, 
among whom I am now numbered. 

For an illustrating type, my fancy lights on 
the flowers and ferns that edge the roadway 
that leads from the village up to the Academy 
building. 

I am sure, that autumn day when the school 
year opened, every blossom and growth seem- 
ed like a parable. Certain it is, there are 
among us golden-rod and purple-aster girls, 
with here and there a blue gentian or some 
venturesome hair-bell or graceful fern-like 
maiden. There are bitter-sweets, too, and 
ivies with clinging tendrils — and to make my 
metaphor complete, lowly- growing grass- 
blades by the score. 

(119) 


120 


HONORIA. 


Yes — surely this suggested resemblance hints 
the inner likeness. But why the difference ? 
A question even Prof. Stuart can not answer. 
For — 

“ What mortal knows, 

Whence comes the tint and odor of the rose } 
What probing deep 
Has ever solved the mystery ? ” 

Why is it that some are “born lilies and 
toll their perfume on the passing air” ? While 
of some ! — But here I am face to face again 
with the very question I asked Ambrose War- 
ner the day he bade me good-bye. The old 
question — Why do tares grow among the 
corn? Why is there deadly night-shade and 
thorny thistle in heart-gardens as well as in 
Nature’s fields? And Ambrose — he never 
made a word of answer to my question. 

Well, spite this unexplainable difference 
between us maidens — a difference for which 
I am glad, as I wrote grandmamma, when I 
called some of us commas, and some by the 
other punctuation titles, — in one thing we 
are all alike. We are all here as seekers. 


HONOIilA. 


12 


Only some of us want knowledge which 
blooms through sunshine rather than by sun- 
shine and rain-drops, too. 

Am I one of the sunshine lovers? my 
heart whispers, yes. 

And this is wrong, for trained as I have 
been, I know storms are needed as well as 
sunshine, before a blossom can become fruit. 

I suppose the thought that is in my heart 
now, was in grandmamma’s, when she bade me 
remember, ‘‘through storms and sunshine, 
through heat and cold, the life pilgrim must 
continue his way, till his weary feet reach 
Heaven.” 

It seems strange why this twofold prepara- 
tion is needed. Why the sorrows of life here 
on earth, help educate for the joys of life 
T/iere, in Heaven. 

Ah ! the mystery of it all. “ Every soul a 
seed,” that is what Prof. Stuart said this 
morning, at the close of his lecture on 
Botany, ending with the words, “ it doth not 
yet appear what it shall be.” 

As we left the class-room, I ventured to lin- 


122 


IIONORIA. 


ger to ask, “ Did he mean us to find a moral 
or a blessing in that last thought, or did it 
hold both?” He looked at me so keenly, 
and yet kindly, as he replied : 

“Yesterday I read, ‘ We are as yet only 
the ugly root of a future beautiful plant ; the 
best man or woman is only a shoot, a little 
way out of the ground ; but we are God’s 
plants — God’s flowers.’” After a moment, he 
added, “ If you believe this, then the moral 
of seed-time is a blessing.” 

“ God’s plants — God’s flowers ! ” I repeated 
the words softly to myself, — and it is true, 
just the assurance they give of God’s owner- 
ship of us, is a blessing. 

But — am I His plant. His flower? 

I was thinking thus as I turned away from 
Prof. Stuart. I thought I was alone as I 
passed out of the open door ; but in a mo- 
ment I became conscious some one was close 
by my side, keeping step, as it were, with 
me. Straightway, I knew it was Rachel 
Fleming, and since that hour, we have 
seemed to walk, heart to heart, and yet 




HONOI^IA. 


123 

we have met every day of the six months 
that have gone by, since I first came to 
Summit Hill; but never before have we 
crossed the bridge that divides acquaintance 
from friendship. For we agree to henceforth 
call one another friend. 

It seems a solemn compact to me, more so, 
I suppose, because I have been till now so 
secluded from companions of my own age. 

I never felt at all the same toward any one 
as I do toward Rachel, except perhaps Am- 
brose Warner— and he is so unlike Rachel, I 
can hardly call my feeling toward him the 
same. 

A friend — it is a wonderful possession— and 
yet, it half frightens me — for in friendship, as 
in all other things, the old proverb holds good, 

'' Nothing venture, nothing have.” There is 
the beautiful side, too— and somehow I think 
most of that — and I am glad it comes to me 
in old Jeremy Taylor’s quaint definition: 

By friendship I suppose you mean the 
greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, and 
the most open communication, and the noblest 


124 


no NORM. 


sufferings, and the most exemplary faithful- 
ness, and the most earnest truth, and the heart- 
iest counsel, and the greatest union of minds 
of which brave men and women are capable/’ 

In writing her grandmother of Rachel 
Fleming, Honoria had described her as a tall, 
slender girl, with dark eyes that had a far-away 
look in them, as though she saw beyond the 
limitations of this present life. 

I am in a class,” thus the after-part of the 
letter reads, “ of thirty or more girls, and we 
all look kindly at one another, but Rachel is 
the only one toward whom my heart out- 
reaches. I am so glad now we are acknowl- 
edged friends, and that I can speak with her 
of the dearest things. I long to ask — has she 
too heard of the San Grail — and is she 
seeking the pearl of great price — and does it 
typify to her what it does to me? 

“ Somehow, I think she would seek far, 
while I think it is near — close even as my 
own soul — for it is written, ^ the Kingdom of 
Heaven is within you.’ 


HONORIA. 


125 

“ If you see Ambrose Warner, ask him, 
dear grandmamma, if that Bible-verse is the 
key to open the lock of this hidden treasure. 

“ It was Ambrose who told me of the old- 
time scholar — celebrated for knowledge — who 
could read the meaning of the stars, and whose 
theory was that a troop of angels left on 
earth a something so sacred, whoever was 
called to its service became truly blessed, and 
this something so precious was the Holy Grail 
— and Ambrose said it was a parable, but the 
mystic story so makes me long to find the 
service in life which is haloed by a blessing.'' 

There may be those who will think Hon- 
oria's linking of this Grail legend, with her 
aspirations for a holy life, a paltry blending of 
the material with the spiritual, the fanciful 
with the real. But I do not think so, for 
surely we have Old and New Testament au- 
thority and guidance for the linking of the 
visible with the invisible, metaphor with 
reality. 

Take but one example out of the many — 

“ And he said, Hagar, Sarah’s maid, whence 


126 


HONORIA. 


comest thou, and whither wilt thou go ? ” 
(Gen. xvi. 8). Which things contain an 
allegory” (Gal. iv. 24), or as the old version 
reads, they are an allegory.” 

Think of the wilderness, where Hagar tar- 
ried by the fountain — and then of the wilder- 
ness we know : — think, too, of the angel and 
the fountain. Yes, surely we have a right to 
seek and find helpful allegories wherever we 
can, either in Bible pages, nature’s teachings, 
or through legend and even myth — only we 
must be careful to keep an open eye to see 
God in all. 

Just here I will copy another extract from 
Honoria’s journal, — for she continues in it 
the thought with which she closed her letter 
to her grandmother : 

I do so long to be a blessing in the world, 
and the San Grail legends have become so 
interwoven with my longing, they supply in a 
certain way a motive power, though they 
do not take my thoughts from the Great 
Example, for they reveal sacred interpreta- 
tions that make life and service such a holy. 


HONOR! A. 


127 


sacred thing. But they make my heart 
shiver sometimes as I ponder them, for they 
so demand struggle as necessary to win vic- 
tory, suffering to develop strength, and I do 
not want to suffer. Life, it is now all so 
beautiful and glad to me. 

“No, I do not want to drink from the chal- 
ice, that holds the grapes of God — and yet, 
without suffering, how can I learn the secret 
of giving sympathy and consolation, and 
without that giving how can my life be a 
blessing? Still I am afraid of pain — afraid of 
mental and heart pain even more than phys- 
ical. 

“ Why, even now, young as I am, I fear the 
struggle with the powers of darkness, and I 
dread encountering many a life problem, be- 
cause I am afraid of the struggle with dis- 
cussions, which if I launch out on the wide 
sea of thought, I know will toss my frail bark 
roughly, as sea-weeds are tossed, when the 
wind blows landward, and the tide drifts in- 
ward. 

“ To-night the Bible verse, ' I have trodden 


128 


HONORIA. 


the wine-press alone,’ comes to me so freight- 
ed with meaning. It so portrays the pro- 
found loneliness of the Christ. And must 
we, too, know something of this solitariness 
of soul before we can ‘ comfort others, with 
the comfort wherewith we are comforted of 
God ’ ? Or does the truth that He trod the 
wine-press take the loneliness away ; and 
only leave the assurance, that if we are called 
to drink the cup of sorrow, it will be a cup 
of blessing as well as grief, for His Hand 
fills it? 

All this I can think, but fear is in my 
heart still. I want some clear, strong mind 
to make plain that which I seem to un- 
derstand with my intellect, but which I do 
not grasp with my heart. 

feel as though I were walking an open 
road with two turnings, which point to the 
two chief elements in faith — faith in what 
the Saviour did, and faith in what the Sav- 
iour was. What I want, is to have it made 
plain, how I can take the did and was^ and 
make them one in my soul’s experience. 


HONORIA. 


129 

for then this soul of mine that is so empty- 
now, would become full of that faith which is 
an all-absorbing desire for Christ-likeness. 

As yet, I hardly touch in any vital way 
the hem of faith’s garment, for if I did, surely 
I would not fear faith’s guiding, even though 
it might lead out of sunshine into shadow, 
out of joy into sorrow.” 


9 


ONORIA’S application of the old 



J — L proverb, — “Nothing venture, nothing 
have,” — was more necessary than she knew 
when first her love for Rachel Fleming be- 
came friendship. 

For the motives which ruled their lives, 
were as unlike as the never-resting waves of 
the sea are unlike the calm ripples that stir 
a mountain lake. 

Hence it was better that Honoria should 
recognize that it was possible that a friend- 
ship might require “ to be chiefly carried on, 
on one side, without due » correspondence on 
the other.” As Emerson expresses it, “ Why 
should we cumber ourselves with regrets that 
the receiver is not capacious ? It never 
troubles the sun that some of his rays fall 
wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only 
a small part on the reflecting planet. Yet, 


(130) 


IIONOJ^IA. 


13 


this can hardly be said without a sort of 
treachery to the relation.”— We so feel the 
crown of friendship is harmony and sym- 
pathy of thought, equality of mental power, 
and oneness of spiritual desire. 

In Honoria s diary she notes a suggestion 
of the difference between her own and Ra- 
chel’s views. 

'' Rachel tries to persuade me her desire to 
excel comes from ambition, the longing to be 
first, rather than from real love of knowl- 
edge ; but indeed I think it is half humility 
that makes her thus miscall her motive.” 

These few lines tell, how in all places, 
where Rachel disappointed her, Honoria was 
wont to find an excuse, because she inter- 
preted her friend by her own standard. 

It is a tender ordering that this should be 
so in youth, and sometimes I think this lov- 
ing way of interpreting others is part of the 
abiding youngness of heart that belongs to 
those whose “youth is renewed like the 
eagle’s, those who mount up on wings.” Re- 
member, “without wings we can never soar 


132 


HONORIA. 


upward to the climate of love,” — and 
“ Faith and humility are the wings of the 
soul.” 

To return to Honoria, and her early knowl- 
edge of Rachel. It was but natural she should 
behold the good — for it is written — “ to the 
pure all things are pure,” — that is, to the 
true in soul, and Honoria was true, and single 
and earnest in motive, as the purest lily 
that ever opened under summer sky. — I like 
the words which tell that the pure heart is 
the transparent firmament of blue, up through 
which we get into God’s great daylight.” 

It was in that daylight our Honoria walked 
— and meanwhile out of the depth of her 
tender soul she gave Rachel treasure-thoughts 
and aspirations, for there was nothing selfish 
about her, she gave of her very best. — And 
school-life was a rarely earnest thing to Hono- 
ria. When it closed she knew she was to 
straightway enter on a life that would demand 
a mind well prepared by study and thought 
to meet men and women who had been knowl- 
edge-seekers long before her blue eyes had 


HONORIA. 


133 

looked on the Heaven above or the earth 
beneath.” For her grandfather had told 
Honoria the quiet home-life at Harbor-town 
was not to be resumed for many a year after 
she left school. 

He had met her in Boston during the brief 
spring-time vacation, and as they wandered 
together from one place of interest to another, 
the Squire had disclosed his plans for her 
future. Immediately after graduation a year 
was to follow, spent in Scotland with the aunts 
and cousins — then a tour on the Continent to 
last another year — and then she was to seek 
the Island home and the father who had 
parted from her when she was a mere baby 
girl. 

As Honoria had listened to her grand- 
father’s programme, she clung close to his arm, 
and she looked more like a frightened bird 
than the brave-hearted maiden she was in 
truth. 

But fears — and a separation from those she 
loved best, that dated full eighteen months 
beyond the present, soon faded before youth’s 


134 


HONORIA. 


happy now — while the knowledge of her 
grandfather’s plans remained as a stimulant for 
effort. 

The thought, too, of meeting her father, 
meant much to Honoria, and the fact that her 
grandfather said the influence of that father’s 
home would test her every principle, only 
served to thrill her heart with the glow of an- 
ticipated conflict. 

“ Grandfather says I wdll have much to try 
me,” thus she wrote in her journal ; but I 
do not fear — for how can one be a conqueror in 
spiritual life, unless there be trials, and even 
strife with temptation ? And all my life long 
I have been so shielded from conflict, and yet 
I know it is true ^ the more peril in the battle, 
the more joy in triumph.’ I know, ‘ when 
storms toss the sailor and threaten shipwreck, 
when sky and sea are calmed, there is exceed- 
ing joy, because there has been exceeding 
danger. Everywhere the greatest joy is ush- 
ered in by the greatest pain.’ No ; I do not 
know this yet — but the heroes in Faith tell 
me it is so. 


HONO/:iA. 


135 


Storm and then calm. It is so a type of 
earth and Heaven. Death and life. Struggle, 
then victory. From the valley to the moun- 
tain-top. Illustrations one hears every day, 
yet they never can lose their power because 
they are so real. 

‘^Yes, surely they are all types of from 
‘ Height to Height.’ — No wonder the old 
hymn prefaces this thought by the lines : 

“ ‘ By the thorn-road, and no other, 

Is the Mount of Vision won ! ’ ” 

This was how Honoria mused as she sat in 
the sunshine and wrote in the little diary 
book, which was like a picture of her young 
heart. 

Poor child ! She little thought how dif- 
ferent it is to ponder the ‘ thorn-road,’ than it 
is to walk it ; how different the asking for a 
thorn-crown, than the wearing it ! And yet 
it was well she thought of these things, before 
the trials came, as come they must — for 
“ Christ does not promise when they come 
that thorns shall be converted into roses.” 


VI 


PRING, spite the fact that it is wont to 



kJ come slowly among the New England 
hills, sometimes unfolds all suddenly. It was 
so the season when Honoria met her grand- 
father in Boston. 

Her absence from the Academy bridged 
only from one Saturday to the next. And 
yet, in that week, snow-drifts had melted, 
grass-blades pushed out their tender green, 
and blue-birds sang their first spring-time 
notes. 

It was the gladdest season of all the year 
to begin a friendship. And no wonder, to 
Honoria and Rachel it seemed a pledge of 
permanency for their newly recognized love 
for one another — for it held promise, not 
only for the “ life that now is, but for that 
which shall be.” 

Ah ! if all the year long, our hearts could 


(136) 


IIONORIA. 


137 


but feel the sureness of immortality as we do 
feel it in the spring— then, we would not 
need to speak of one day as Easter, for all 
days as from darkness they spring into 
light would repeat-the Easter gladness- 

Christ is Risen.’ ‘ Life follows death.’ Our 
Risen Christ, the Open Door. Our Hope 
can enter within the Veil. 

‘*When spring flowers rise from their little graves, 
In the beauty of vernal bloom, 

Then think of the first great Easter morn. 
Remember the riven tomb ! 

When conscience tells of many a sin 
And speaks of a Master denied. 

When the soul cries out for a Saviour from 
guilt. 

Remember the riven tomb ! ” 

Honoria did not go far in her heart to 
heart companionship with Rachel before she 
spoke of the things she held most dear ; and 
it was in these matters the first shadow of 
difference made itself felt between them. 

In all religious thoughts their training had 
been entirely unlike. Rachel Fleming, ac- 


138 


HONORIA. 


cording to opinions that then held sway in 
many parts of New England, was perhaps 
more orthodox than Honoria. She was strict 
in her observance of the letter of the law, but 
she had never been taught, as Honoria had, — 
through her grandmother’s gentle guidance — 
to decipher the hieroglyphic letter of the 
Old Testament by the illumining of the 
New, which reads — Law is Love, Love is 
Law,” — “ Christ is God, for God is Christ,” — 
“ I and my Father are one ; he that hath seen 
me, hath seen the Father. Have I been so 
long a time with you, and yet hast thou not 
known me?” Were ever words of deeper 
pathos ! — “ so long ” — “ not yet known ! ” 

But to return to the difference between 
the two friends in their thoughts of the 
Christ. Rachel beheld in Him merely an ob- 
ject of worship — Honoria an object for imi- 
tation as well as worship, and hence for close 
study. They were talking of this one day in 
the late spring, as they walked up and down 
the long path that led from the Academy to 
the Chapel. Prof. Stuart joined them. And 


HONORIA, 


139 

Honoria, in writing her grandmother the his- 
tory of that hour, after reporting the forepart 
of their conversation, added : 

Rachel asked Prof. Stuart, ‘ How we could 
comprehend the Lord? How imperfection 
could understand perfection?^ For answer 
he repeated Christ’s own words, ‘ I am 
the Light of Life,’— and then he said, 

‘ Remember, this Light can touch the 
sympathies of each, and so create motive 
for reproduction — its sphere limitless, for it 
is within the circuit of each life — and in its 
working it is natural.’ Naturalness! Prof. 
Stuart makes so much of it. 

“ I told him one day that he made me feel I 
ought to reverence my own special personality, 
full of faults as it is. And he replied — ‘ Cer- 
tainly, you ought to ; for man was made in 
the image of God.’ But I was telling you 
what he said to Rachel about the Lord’s 
dealing with us in the different spheres of 
our being. ‘ In the sphere of the mind 
through mystery ; in the sphere of the affec- 
tions through either profoundest joy, or deep- 


140 


HONORIA. 


est grief ; in the sphere of the body through 
physical pain ; in the sphere of the will 
through conflict ; in conscience either through 
remorse, or the blessed experience, only known 
by true Christians, for they alone can know 
the peace and gladness of soul of which St. 
Paul writes: Our rejoicing is the testimony 
of our conscience.” ’ Words, Prof. Stuart said, 
‘ that had the charm of life in them, for they 
tell how a man lived — how a man .may 
live.’ ” 

This is how Honoria wrote her grand- 
mother of that conversation — a conversation 
that in her memory was like Aaron’s rod — a 
blossoming staff, every thought fragrant as a 
flower. But to Rachel, Prof. Stuart’s words 
were hardly more than an empty sound, for 
she felt no glow of love to God ; the striving 
after obedience to His commands was a mere 
outgrowth of education, not a loving, willing 
service like that Honoria sought to yield. 
Hence much the Professor said could not fail 
to be meaningless, for if we do not understand 
an earthly friend till we love, how can we un- 


HONORIA. 


141 

derstand the Heavenly Friend before we love 
Him? 

And yet love — Heavenly Love — was so 
manifest that day even in mute things. It 
seemed strange one could be out under the 
blue sky and not feel its enfolding influence. 
For it was one of those days, bright with sun- 
shine and rare beauty, when everything whis- 
pers of the “ Land not far off.” 

The fruit-bearing trees that grew in the 
orchard back of the Academy, were like bloom 
ing globes of beauty, while flowers were nod- 
ding and smiling everywhere, in the garden, 
and in the woods, out in the meadows and on 
the hill-sides. It was that day that Honoria 
found the first lily-bell of the season — and so 
subtle is the mind in its working, somehow 
that lily led her thoughts across sea and 
continent, from the present to the past, back 
to the very heart of her favorite symbol, the 
Holy Grail. But she paused before giving 
utterance to her thoughts, feeling the restraint 
of Prof. Stuart’s presence. And yet, when 
with a smile, he said, “ Let me hear too,” with a 


142 


IIONORIA. 


grace unstudied as the song of a bird, Honoria 
repeated legend after legend. 

And as she spoke they stood still, there — 

‘‘ Where the blossoms from the grass were springing. 
As they laughed to meet the sparkling sun — 

there, out under the blue sky — 

“ While the small birds on the bough were singing.” 

But what Honoria repeated, I will tell in 
the next chapter. 


VII. 


nVyO — I will not tell all she repeated, but 
JL 1 merely the lines over which she lingered 
tenderly, because they held a two-fold mean- 
ing for her — they were from the old poem of 
Parzival — and she began where — 


‘‘ Advanced the Queen 
With countenance of so bright a sheen. 
They all imagined day would dawn. 

On a green silken cushion she 
The Pearl of Pardon did bear. 


Complete, root, branch, beginning, end — 

^ The Grail it was all-glorious, fair. 

Beyond perfection earth can lend.” 

And then, in a softer voice, Honoria added 
the words*that ever since first she heard them, 
she had felt her grandfather meant her to 
take for a life rule : 

“ She who bore it must be pure. 

Of just and perfect heart, and strong 
To fnghten falsehood, sin, and wrong.” 

(143) 


44 


HONORIA. 


And with eyes shining like stars Honoria 
exclaimed : I know it holds a deeper spiritual 
significance than ever yet I have touched/’ 
Rachel interrupted, asking, “ But why are 
you not content to let it fill the place of a 
type of whatever prize you set before you 
rather than seeking its deep meaning ? ” 

“ Yes,” Honoria replied, “ if it stands as the 
emblem of the really best — the ‘ Pearl of great 
price.’ ” — And she murmured the words again : 
“ On a green silken cushion she, the Pearl 
of Pardon did bear.” And then a look of 
earnest thought stole over Honoria’s face. It 
was a full minute before she spoke again. 
When she did, it was as though she were 
speaking to herself, for she said, “ I am won- 
dering if there is not a deep significance in the 
recorded statement that it Was a woman who 
carried the ^ Pearl of Pardon ’ — for after Christ 
came women filled such a different place in 
life.” And then, for she was apt to be quick 
in passing on from one thought to another, 
Honoria resumed her description of “ the 
stone which some called the Grail, ‘and which 


HO NOKIA. 


145 


was said to have the power of reviving life so 
that it became more beautiful than ever.” 

‘‘Do you not see,” she asked, ^‘the shining 
of the Pearl in this legend ? To me, it is like 
the other side of the Gospel parable of ‘ the 
merchantman seeking goodly pearls ’ ” — and, 
without waiting for a reply, she continued to 
tell that they who keep the holy thing before 
them should always be fresh and lovely, for it 
is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, 
the source of all good.” 

One more legend Honoria told, and that 
the one which, to my mind, is the fullest of 
all the Grail stories. It is the one linked with 
the Dove. Do you remember, it tells of 
Good Friday, and of the Dove’s descending 
from Heaven on that day to reveal the Holy 
Grail. 

A Dove its flight from Heaven doth wing, 

And bears to earth an offering, 

Upon the holy stone to lay 
A small white wafer. Then away 
With pinions spread, and shining crest, 

It seeks again its heavenly nest.”^' 


10 


146 


HO NOKIA. 


“The Dove, the emblem of the Holy 
Spirit, descending to testify, as it were, to the 
divine power of the Grail.” 

The day following their talk of the Holy 
Grail, Honoria met Prof. Stuart in the Hall 
of the Academy, and as he lingered to speak 
with her, eagerly she asked, “ Is it wrong for 
me to find all I do in this ^ San Grail ’? ” 

“ Surely not wrong,” the Professor replied, 
“if, in the beauty of the thought, and the 
enjoyment of research, you do not lose sight 
of the deed it inspires. If, in following the 
legend and its unfolding meanings, you do 
not forget its practical lesson.” 

“Yes, I know,” softly Honoria answered, 
“ it is called a cup of pearl, and the cup is the 
symbol of service. I know the Christ said, 
‘ Whosoever shall give a cup of cold water in 
My Name, blessed is he.’ — I know the Lord 
asked, ‘ Can you drink of the cup of which I 
drink? ’ I know He took the cup and blessed 
it.” 

But did she know ? 

Perhaps S was well that just then the 


I/OXO/^/A. 


147 


Chapel bell rang the summons for evening 
prayers, — a dear old-time custom still in force 
in that New England Seminary. In a mo- 
ment the Hall was full of teachers and scholars, 
and five minutes later Honoria was sitting by 
Rachel Fleming, and listening to Dr. Man- 
ning’s well-known voice, as he read the ‘ Call 
to Prayer’; every one before him had heard it 
many a time before, and yet they never could 
hear it too often. 

Do you know the verses I mean ? 

“ When dark the road, and sore the foot. 

And desolate the way, 

We have a light, a strength, a guide 
Oremus — ‘ Let us Pray.’ 

“ Prayer is the culture of the soul 
That turns to wheat the tares. 

Prayer is a begging angel, whom 
We shelter unawares. 

Prayer is a wisdom, which the wise 
To babes have oft resigned ; 

But He, who bade us seek, be sure 
He meant that we should find. 

“ A small hand feeling in the dark, 

A natural gasp for air, 

A half articulate aim at speech — 

To want to pray, is prayer. 


HONOR! A. 


** What, though the language halts ? The halt 
Have also walked with God, 

They lean upon His arm and find 
A Staff even in His Rod. 

The song of Moses is the song 
That long through Heaven has rung, 

And yet the prayer of Moses came 
From one of stammering tongue. 

‘ Unasked He gives,’ dost thou object ? 

Yet ask Him not the less, 

For even a blessing, blessing needs 
To make it blessedness. 

“‘Unasked He gives,’ ’tis very true 
His bounty is so great : 

Yet no man ever got from God 
But he had more to get. 

“ ‘ But what if we should ask amiss 
As one who knew has taught } ’ 

There’s no man asks so much amiss 
As he who asks for naught. 

“ He gives or He withholds in Love, 

In this one truth we rest : 

God does the best, ’tis only man 
That does it for the best. 

“ ‘ What will be, will be,’ yea, but that 
Is not a theme for thee : 

The one important point is this — 

What wiliest thou to be ? 


HONOR! A. 


“ Wilt thou be made ? was never asked 
Of any living soul : 

The only question put to man 
Is, wilt thou be made whole ? 

“ ‘ But how is it so great a boon 

Through simple prayer we meet ? ’ 

We know not /tow, we only know 
That t/izs is His receipt. 

“ Sufficient that He tells us so, 

Whose words we can not doubt : 
Sufficient, surely, that we see 
It somehow brought about. 

“ ‘ He knows thy wants, without thine aid 
He sees the thing thou art ’ — 

He does, and knows our greatest want 
Is an obeying heart. 

“ He could have made the marriage wine 
At Cana with a word : 

The water that the guests brought in 
Was nothing to the Lord. 

“ But what He needs not. He requires. 
And should the guests decline. 

He leaves them with their emptiness 
And makes no water wine. 

“ Then w’hen He bids thee fill the pots. 
Go fill them to the brim. 

Not fearing lest ye ask too much 
Exhaust or weary Him.” 


VIII. 


T is so pleasant to linger over the story of 



-L early maidenhood ; I do not want to 
open the window of this ark-time safety, and 
let the Dove fly out over the broad waters. 
For who knows, will it find an olive leaf? 
Nevertheless windows must open — Doves must 
fly. They must try their wings, for how else 
can they learn to soar ? 

The Dove of old — Noah’s own cherished 
Dove — “ did not find the olive-branch in the 
Ark, but out in a ruined world ! ” And be- 
cause souls need this testing of independent 
flight there comes an end to school discipline, 
and home training, too, in a certain way, even 
though we never pass the boundary of the 
“ school of life ” till we enter that 

“ Golden chamber of the King's 
Larger than this we leave, and lovelier.” 

(150) 


HOh^ORIA. 


151 

But I repeat, we all come to a time when we 
either trail earth-clipped wings on earth-trod- 
den ways, or fly upward ! 

How strange it is, in this mortal life, that 
the controlling power which of its own free 
will makes choice whether our soul’s flight be 
upward or downward, is a power as invisible 
as the air we breathe, and yet like the air vital 
with Life. We can see the work of our hands, 
the pathway our feet tread ; we hear the 
words our voices utter ; we feel the touch of 
love by which affection seeks expression. But 
that which guides and prompts — hand, foot, 
voice, and touch — is hidden in the Unseen, 
though it is our very self. And so, out of the 
complexity of our own being, we are brought 
close to the realness of the unseen world. 
Close to the cloud of witnesses ” into which 
our beloved enter when from death here, they 
pass on to life There, A cloud of witnesses ! 
Think of the encompassing angels ! 

After pondering this complexity of a soul, 
we can understand, I think, why in winging 
its way from earth to Heaven — 


152 


nONORIA. 


“ The bird that soars on highest wing 
Builds on the ground her lowly nest ; 
And she that does most sweetly sing, 
Sings in the shade where all things rest. 
In lark and nightingale we see 
What honor hath humility,” 


And — 

“ The Saint that wears Heaven’s brightest crown, 

In deepest adoration bends ; 

The weight of glory bows him down, 

Then most, when most his soul ascends ; 

Nearest the throne itself must be. 

The footstool of humility.” 

And now, though it spans with scarce a 
halt, over eighteen months of time, I speed on 
to the day that prefaced Honoria Lambert’s 
graduation from Summit Hill Academy. It 
was nearing the hour of sunset when Honoria 
entered the Hall — as the large recitation-room 
was called — a place that from early morning 
till past noon-time that day had echoed with 
the sound of young voices and gay laughter. 
For scholars, as well as teachers, had been 
eager over the task of transforming the some- 
what dreary room into a bower-like hall. 


HO NOKIA. 


153 


decked by gracefully draped flags, and wreath- 
ed with fragrant cedar and pine ; while huge 
boughs of hemlock and spruce softened the 
sharp corners of the long room by broken 
outlines of plumery branch and varied tint- 
ings of green. 

When the last wreath had been hung, the 
last flag draped, like bees flocking to their 
hive, the merry company had hastened to the 
dormitory building to give the finishing touch 
to some simple robe to be worn on the mor- 
row, or to complete the final packing of books 
and treasures that had accumulated during 
the term. 

There were farewell words, too, for friend 
to whisper to friend, and essays to be read 
over, songs to sing, and the numberless last 
things that never can be done till the time for 
departure comes. 

For leaving a familiar place is always a type 
of that last parting, after which never again 
we know a farewell, for thank God — 

“ The farewell always lies behind us, 

And the welcome always lies beforey 


154 


HONORIA. 


I wonder why we try to anticipate this 
* last parting ’ — I wonder why we forget that 
the hour which holds it, holds sustaining grace 
too — and yet, we so crave grace for our fu- 
ture before the future comes, instead of walk- 
ing softly in the living grace of the living 
day.” Living grace ! Ah ! if we did but look 
to the Life^ the agony of death would lose its 
sting — not its pain — for God never asks us to 
call sorrow by any name but sorrow. 

Life — think how it enfolds us — for, we 
have a living Saviour, and a living quickening 
Spirit to meet our living souls. A living prov- 
idence ‘ full of eyes before and behind ’ to 
watch working and giving souls, a living love 
of God filling all the world like the light of 
the bright summer day. Trust to the living 
things, and, above all, trust to the living God, 
for — oh ! the love of it — because He lives, we 
shall live also.” 

As I said before, it was nearing twilight 
when Honoria entered the Hall. The great 
room was empty. Not a sound broke the 


IIONORIA, 



155 


hush, save the monotonous tick of the old 
clock, and the hum of a foolish bee striving to 
pass the imprisoning glass of a window-pane. 

More than once Honoria walked up and 
down the Hall, and every time she came to 
the entrance door, which stood wide open, 
she lingered to look with an eager gaze out 
toward the road that led up from the village 
— for it was well-nigh time for the daily coach 
to arrive. And, to Honoria, that meant the 
arrival of her grandparents, for Squire and 
Mrs. Lambert, spite their custom of seldom 
leaving home, were both coming to attend the 
graduation exercises in which Honoria was to 
take a leading part. And then — this was the 
plan — Honoria with no return to the dear 
Harbor-town home, was to sail for Scotland 
the very next week. 

Squire and Mrs. Lambert were not coming 
alone — thus the Squire had written. — Ambrose 
Warner was to join them at Boston, and it 
was for the trio Honoria watched and waited. 
She grew impatient as the twilight shadows 
deepened down in the valley. She turned 


HO NOKIA. 


156 

from the open door and walked to the veiy 
end of the Hall, standing still for full half a 
minute, reading over in a low voice the motto 
which she had helped twine in cedar letters, 
and that Prof. Stuart had fastened above the 
clock. 

The Professor, like Squire Lambert, was 
Scotch by birth and education, and it had 
well pleased him “ to transplant not the root,” 
as he said, but the seed of the noble maxim 
of his own college of Aberdeen.” And so, as 
the young girls wound the letters, he had 
dictated the words Honoria read to herself — 
though already she knew them : They have 
said. What say they? Let them say.” 

Not till that minute had they been illumined 
with meaning for her, and so absorbed was she 
with the new light they revealed, she gave a 
quick start as a step came to a halt close by 
her side. 

Straightway she knew it was Prof. Stuart, 
and, as she greeted him, a smile played about 
her dimpled mouth as a sunbeam plays over a 
rose-bud. For Honoria had a dimple, and, as 


HON OKI A. 


157 

the fisher-wives about Harbor-town pier were 
wont to say, “ It was plain to see Miss Honoria 
had been kissed by the angels/’ 

These fisher- wives were Breton folk many of 
them, and their minds were rife with odd 
fancies and superstitions. Hence they ac- 
cepted with never a doubt the old saying of 
their native land ‘Hhat the infant Jesus in 
playful mood pressed His finger lightly on the 
chin of St. Barbara, who has 'transmitted the 
dimple token of loveliness and heavenly favor 
from generation to generation.” And “ a 
dimple was to them not only a beauty, but 
a sign of inward purity.” And who so well 
deserved this mark of special grace as Honoria ? 

All her life she had been, to these simple 
people, a Gospel — a bringer of good-tidings. 
Material aid first — for in her childhood, Hono- 
ria and her little basket laden with comforts 
for the poor and feeble, were a sight, fami- 
liar as May-flowers in spring. And, when 
childhood had glided into maidenhood, every 
Sabbath, for full a year before she left home, 
she had passed in and out among the dwell- 


HONORIA. 


158 

ings of the Tiamlet people, singing now a sweet 
song of heavenly hope or reading words from 
the Book — the Book the poor love so well. 

That smile that lit up Honoria’s face as 
Prof. Stuart joined her, was truly a reflection 
of the smile in her heart, and yet she had 
never defined why she was always glad when 
with Prof. Stuart. 

For while Honoria Lambert was full of 
sentiment as a bird is full of song, she was 
entirely free from anything like sentimentality, 
and she never had even thought of the secret 
that Prof. Stuart meant to carefully keep 
within his own heart. 

He had struggled with himself, and, though 
his love for Honoria had become the dearest 
thing life held for him, he had determined on 
silence. 

The child shall never know," he had said, 
as he beheld her in all the fresh beauty of her 
young life, and contrasted it with his own 
more than two-score years. 

But when love takes hold of the heart of a 


HONORIA. 


159 

middle-aged man, it is wont to be like the 
north wind, a strong impelling power. And, 
as Andrew Stuart looked down on the fair 
face so trustfully upturned toward him, almost 
before the words had taken form in his mind 
his lips had uttered — I love you ! Honoria, 
Honoria.” 

And so the tale was told. It took but one 
brief moment of time, and yet, that moment, 
held for Honoria Lambert, life’s song, in a 
sweeter, fuller measure than ever she could 
hear it again. For — there never can be two 
first times — yet, life sometimes is like summer, 
and brings flowers beautiful and fragrant — 
only summer flowers are not spring blos- 
soms ! 

Three times sixty times, the ever moving 
pendulum of the old clock swayed back and 
forth before Honoria said one word. She 
stood, with uplifted face still, but the smile 
had gone. She paid no heed to the hand out- 
stretched toward her. Almost it seemed as 
though she had not heard the Professor’s 
words. But she had — and in her heart, dur- 


i6o 


HONORIA. 


ing those minutes bounded by three, the story, 
old as the centuries, was lived over again. — 
For 

“ Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all 
the chords with might ; 

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in 
music out of sight.” 

And so, Honoria Lambert passed from one 
life into another, as swiftly as a rose-bud 
opens into a rose. For, henceforth for her, 
self was no longer self alone. 

All this, which in the telling reaches over 
from page to page, was encompassed by 
time as brief as the space that intervenes be- 
tween the first ray of morning sunlight that 
illumines a mountain peak, and the quickly 
following glory of unclouded sunrise that 
floods the earth and sky with brightness. 

For, it takes but a moment for love to be- 
come wide-awake, when it has been dawning 
in the heart — unconsciously dawning per- 
chance — for the heart of a maiden, like our 
Honoria, is a tender thing — it shuts its door 
against dreams, even though they be sweet as 
poets’ song. 


ffONOJ^IA. 


l6l 


And yet, spite the contradiction, the door 
of a maiden’s heart is wont to be on the latch, 
but only for one hand to open— and for Hon- 
oria the opening hand was Andrew Stuart’s, 
the man whose youth had been a well-nigh 
closed page, while she was hardly more than 
a prattling child. 

Very strange is the ordering of events in 
these lives of ours. That very day, Ambrose 
Warner— who had loved Honoria so well for 
years— was coming, that very hour he was to 
hold her little hand in his. 

But his coming was too late ! too late ! 
And yet, life is such a mystery, the sequel to 
his love for Honoria held a completeness 
Prof. Stuart’s never knew. 

^ But in the first gladness of love, hearts do 
not reach on to the future, the present is 
enough. Then, too, there are some natures 
that live as much in one brief year, golden 
with hope, as others live in a life-time of ful- 
filled wishes. And Honoria possessed such a 
nature. 


E all know how, in moments of the 



V V deepest emotion, a familiar sound will 
waft us back into the commonplace, swiftly 
as spring breezes waft blossoms from tree 
boughs. And yet, what we call the common- 
place is changed for us, for how can it be 
otherwise, when our life has been touched 
either with the radiance of great joy, or over- 
gloomed by the shadow of grief ? Still, to 
Professor Stuart and Honoria, the sound of 
wheels crunching the gravel of the carriage 
drive was like some hand beckoning them 
back to the feelings of half an hour be- 


fore. 


And with no word of explanation, Honoria 
sped through the open door, that she might 
meet the coach at the last turn of the drive. 
But it was not the well-known stage-coach, 


(162} 


HO NOKIA. 


163 

but a light carriage with only one passenger, 
a man whose face was pale and wan — and 
yet, yet, surely it was Ambrose Warner. 

No wonder Honoria’s heart beat with a 
quick throb of foreboding. No wonder, all 
in a moment, the light of the setting sun 
grew dim — and then — Ambrose was by her 
side, he held her hand in his, he told the tale 
of sorrow, he made no delay about it. 

Thus it happened that Honoria was brought 
close to joy and close to grief, both within 
the same hour. A contrast sharp as mid- 
summer calm and mid-summer storm. 

This is what Ambrose told. A sudden 
gale had swept the Eastern coast the night 
before. And the vessel in which Squire and 
Mrs. Lambert had embarked at noon-time — a 
staunch, swift sailing boat, that had winged 
its way out of the Harbor toward the open 

sea, like a bird flying southward But, why 

detail a story so well known — enough, when 
the gray light of morning dawned, that east- 
ern shore was strewn with signs of the mid- 
night wreck. 


HONORIA. 


164 

Later in the day, the silent forms of Squire 
and Mrs. Lambert had been brought home to 
the stately mansion on the Cliff. And Am- 
brose Warner, who was waiting for their 
arrival at the Boston Pier, had heard — and 
then, with no tarrying, he had hastened on 
to Summit Hill, that he, rather than a 
stranger, should be the one to tell Honoria. 

Not ten minutes after Ambrose’s arrival 
well-nigh every inmate of the Academy 
knew the story of woe. Tenderness was 
enfolding Honoria. Kind hands and hearts 
were already preparing for her speedy depart- 
ure. 

Take me home,” were the only words she 
had uttered, and eagerly her eyes, with the 
strange new look of grief in them, had 
sought among the group gathered about her, 
for the friend who best could help her in 
that time of supreme agony. But Prof. 
Stuart was not there. Rachel was close by 
her side, Ambrose and Mary Warner too ; 
but where was the man who only an hour be- 
fore had told her of his love ? 


HONORIA, 


165 

Take me home — home,” — over and over 
she repeated the words. Poor child, she was 
so all unlearned in sorrow. Poor child, she 
did not know, love, dear love is what makes 
home — not place. And all her life long she 
had been so encompassed by love. But that 
was ended now, as far as the care of grand- 
father and grandmother could express it. — 
All ended! For the silence that had come 
to Squire and Mrs. Lambert, was the si- 
lence that never is broken here on earth — 
never. 

However heart-breaking the plea for one 
word — just one, never, never do the gates 
of that silence open. 

The arrangements for Honoria’s departure 
were speedily made. Mary Warner would 
accompany her, and Mrs. Manning yielded to 
Rachel Fleming’s request that she too might 
make one of the sad company. They were to 
start at daybreak. It was all to be an over- 
land journey, even the short sail from Five- 
Mile Point to Harbor-town, Ambrose planned 


NONORI/i. 


i66 

to avoid. He would fain, too, have spared 
Honoria the sight of the ruthless sea-waves 
had it been possible ; but that he could not 
do. 

Meanwhile, where was Prof. Stuart ? Sure- 
ly his place was by the side of the young girl 
so suddenly bereft of those who had been 
father and mother to her ever since she could 
remember. Surely he was the one to whisper 
words of consolation. 

And yet — his absence was natural enough — 
spite the fact that it in very truth foreshad- 
owed the future. 

For in the hours of greatest need all through 
life, Honoria would be alone. No, never 
alone, in one sense, for always the promise for 
those who look to Christ is, “ Lo, I am with 
you.” And — Yes, always alone in that alone- 
ness which has no human companionship. 

I said Prof. Stuart’s absence was natural, 
and, so it was, for when Honoria in the bright- 
ness of joy had left him to meet her grand- 
parents, without whose blessing joy lacked 


HONORIA. 


167 

completion, he also left the Hall, but by a 
different path than she had taken, for he 
turned toward the woods. 

He wanted to be alone. It was all so won_ 
derful to him. Could it be, that the happiness 
of loving and being loved was truly his ? 

Verily for the following hour, whatever the 
future might bring, Andrew Stuart was happy. 

She loved him ! he repeated the words over 
and over. “ She loves me — loves me.” 

Ah ! no wonder Prof. Stuart felt the need of 
seeking the high hills, and communion with the 
Giver of the gift, for he was a man who be- 
lieved ; hence he recognized “ every good and 
perfect gift cometh from above.” Yes, he was 
a man of earnest faith — a man who strove 
to walk uprightly ; but just for the want of 
courage he had left unsaid a word to Honoria, 
— when he told her of his love — that would 
shadow the future with a shadow her love 
even would not be strong enough to dispel. 
But of this he did not think as he climbed the 
steep up-hill path — smiling out of very glad- 
ness, and grateful, because able then to say, 


HONOR! A. 


1 68 

and feel, Honoria’s love was God’s gift to him. 
But when darkness came, would he feel so 
then ? 

It is so much easier to say in the sunshine 
“ the Lord gives,” than it is to say in the 
storm, “ the Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away ” — so much easier. And in this 
case specially so, for the fault was all Andrew 
Stuart’s own. But I will not anticipate. 




X. 

T he days that closely followed her leav- 
ing Summit Hill Academy, were to 
Honoria, all her life long, dim and unreal as 
the memory of a dark night. 

Even the parting from Prof. Stuart she 
could only recall in a shadowy way. She re- 
membered her longing for him those hours 
after Ambrose Warner had arrived. She re- 
membered, how, as the loneliness of sorrow, 
like an ice-cold hand, seemed to grasp her 
heart, she sought, but sought in vain, his 
form among those grouped around her. And 
then she remembered a brief time in the gray 
light of early morning, when she stood for a 
minute alone in Mrs. Manning’s little parlor, 
and he came to her. And how, all in a mo- 
ment, she felt comforted and safe as he held 
her cold hands in his warm clasp, and drew 

her trembling form close to him. 

(169) 


1/0 


HONOJilA. 


But beyond this, all was undefined, just as 
were the words he whispered, as he slipped a 
slender circlet of gold on her finger. 

Ah ! if those words had but told a fuller 
story, surely, even in her grief, Honoria 
would have caught their meaning — and how 
much of future pain they would have pre- 
vented. But Andrew Stuart, though he was 
a middle-aged, grave, and scholarly man, 
was weak, and lacking in courage, and he left 
the words unsaid — his bygone story un- 
told. — 

But it was as well — at least, so far as the 
perfecting Honoria’s character — for struggle 
and disappointment well-nigh always strength- 
en an earnest soul. 

Yes, it is true that “the soul is like a 
battle-field, where the grass grows the greener, 
because there battles have been fought.'’ 
There are those who say, too, that “ there are 
some herbs of comfort and assurance that 
dinna grow till the heart itself has graves.” 


While the events of that time to Honoria 


HONOIilA. 


171 

were as destitute of details as a tree in win- 
ter is destitute of leaves, to Ambrose Warner 
all was clear and sharply defined. His eyes 
read the meaning of Honoria’s uplifted gaze, 
as Prof. Stuart held her hand for a moment 
before parting. 

It was all an open page ; there was no need 
of spoken words to tell him, that the heart 
of that middle-aged man beat like an echo of 
his own— the only difference, that the -older 
man, even in parting, heard the undertone 
music of hope ; while hope for him— it was 
like a flower, faded !— And yet, he had 
loved Honoria — so long — so well. 

But Ambrose was brave; he had the old 
Puritan strength of will, and loyalty to right. 
Disappointment might wound him sorely, 
but his life must go on — duty was no less 
duty, because joy had faded. The sower 
must sow the corn, and the golden grain, 
though he walk afield, amid furrows deep 
cut by the ploughman’s plough. Have you 
ever watched the parable of ploughing } 
Ever looked at the green turf — a thousand 


172 


HONORIA. 


grass-blades to one sod ? And seen, all in a 
moment, the sharp up-turning plough lay the 
grass-blades low, covering them with the gray 
soil of earth-clods. Have you ever looked 
on the same field months later, and seen the 
waving grain, and the ripened corn? If you 
have, you know the parable I mean. You 
know, too, how it is an index to God’s deal- 
ing with the hearts of the sons and daughters 
of His love. 

Whatever Ambrose Warner suffered, no 
sign of it appeared in his treatment of Hon- 
oria — only perchance there was even more of 
tenderness in his manner — he was, as she 
called him, A strong brother to her.” 

When they reached Harbor-town — at night- 
fall of that very day, so speedily they jour- 
neyed — they did not go to the Squire’s man- 
sion, but straightway to the Parsonage, a 
vine-covered nest at the foot of the steep 
Cliff road. 

Pastor Warner and his kindly wife were 
watching for them — they almost overlooked 
their own Mary in their tender care for Hon- 


HONORIA. 


173 


oria. And it was Mrs. Warner’s motherly 
hands that tended the. weary girl that night : 
her motherly heart, that by its motherhood 
instinct understood the silence and bewilder- 
ment that enfolded Honoria, like a veil, and 
that to Mary and Rachel made her seem cold 
and reserved. 

It was Mrs. Warner, too, who sat by her, 
till long after quiet restful sleep had closed 
the eyes of all others of the household. 
Mrs. Warner, who smoothed the hair back 
from Honoria’s aching forehead, and ex- 
pressed by tender touch, the sympathy it 
did not need words to tell. 

By and by, Honoria slept too, but still the 
woman with a mother’s heart watched by her 
side. 

This tenderness of human hearts — it is 
such a beautiful part of life — the coming to 
know it, verily is one of the blessings that 
blossoms out of grief ; and sometimes it is 
so hidden behind exteriors that give no 
hint of it. It was so with Mrs. Warner ; 
merely looking at her one saw only a plain- 


IIONORIA. 


174 

faced woman of a common enough type in 
New England — somewhat stern in expres- 
sion, and angular in form. But — think of the 
soul the angels saw ! 

Early the next day, the usually quiet vil- 
lage of Harbor-town was all astir. There 
were comers from far and near — among them, 
Judge Bruce, Squire Lambert’s oldest friend 
in America — and the two grave, portly gen- 
tlemen who were to act as executors of the 
Squire’s will. 

A delegation, too, of literary and scientific 
men, came on from Boston, to show this 
last mark of respect for one who had filled 
a place important among the learned, as 
Squire Lambert had done, spite his secluded 
life. 

And then, there were the mourners, most 
of them humble folk, and all had tender, 
grateful memories of the Squire and his 
Christian wife. 

But among all that vast company of peo- 
ple, Honoria was the only one whose sorrow 
had the claim of kinship. 


HONORIA. 


175 


The funeral service was held in the village 
church — and no barrier of social position held 
sway there — so they met, learned and un- 
learned, rich and poor, city strangers and 
country neighbors, all brought together by 
the desire to express affection and respect 
for those gone from earth. 

Not till sundown did the church bell cease 
its tolling that day. And not till sundown, 
did the last group of sorrowing men and 
women turn away from the newly-made 
graves in the hillside burial-ground. 

This time of which I tell was long before 
the custom of covering newly-made graves 
with flowers had become universal ; but every 
dweller about that country and coast-side 
knew Squire and Mrs. Lambert’s love for all 
blooming things ; and though there had been 
no planning for it, almost every one among 
the lowly folk that followed in the long pro- 
cession to the hillside resting-place, carried in 
their hands some bud, or blossom which they 
left on the graves.— For, just as flowers bloom 
in wildest nooks, so among the most unlearned 


HONORIA. 


176 

there is an inborn understanding of the ten- 
der significance of God’s flowers on mortal 
graves ! 

“ Consider the lilies.” — Truly, these words 
uttered by the Lord Christ, have become the 
keynote of tender consolation for sorrowing 
hearts all the world over. — For “flower life 
and human life have a wonderful correspond- 
jsnce to each other,” flowers are always 
whispering — if we listen to hear — “ the mor- 
tal shall bloom into immortality.” 

From the graves Honoria returned to the 
parsonage, — Rachel Fleming and Mary War- 
ner taking her place at the mansion, where 
there was much coming and going all. the live- 
long day. But only the executors of Squire 
Lambert’s will and Judge Bruce tarried over 
for the morrow, when an early hour was ap- 
pointed for the reading of the formal paper. 
A lengthy document, they all saw, as Judge 
Bruce spread the closely written pages out 
before him on the library table. 

Honoria was present ; she was very pale, but 


HONORIA. 


177 


calm, and so quiet her foot-fall had hardly 
been noticed as she entered the room and 
sought a seat within the shadow of the alcove 
window, where the heavy curtains were still 
undrawn. 

It seemed strange that those pages, traced 
by a hand that never again would guide pen 
or pencil, yet held the girl’s destiny in a certain 
way, for she was not one to lightly put aside 
any wish, even if not a positive command that 
her grandfather had therein expressed. 

Rachel Fleming was with her — and, behind 
her chair, with one hand resting on it, stood 
Prof. Stuart. 

He had arrived early that morning. His 
heart had been with Honoria every hour of 
the day before, but it had been impossible, 
without neglect of duty, for him to leave 
Summit Hill before the closing exercises of 
th^ Academy. And yet, I repeat, his heart 
had been with Honoria all the time; we all 
know this mysterious power by which we can, 
as it were, be in two places at once. 

It gives us such a firm grasp on immortality 


178 


HONORIA. 


— SO much that we can not explain by words 
becomes plain through the knowledge that 
our souls are not bound, like our bodies, by 
time, and earthly counted miles. And, why 
need we find it harder to believe that our 
loved ones who have gone from earth to 
heaven are close by us, than it is for us to feel 
the nearness of those who are still on earth, 
yet separated from us. Why is it harder for 
us to feel this ? — Why ? 


XL 


J UDGE BRUCE assumed a thoroughly 
professional voice and manner as he read 
the somewhat strange terms of Squire Lam- 
bert’s will, though he had been his warm per- 
sonal friend for years. 

There is no need for us to go through it. 
The Squire left a large property wisely de- 
vised, as far as it included his son, and legacies 
for Scotch relations. American friends, also, 
were remembered, and not one of the servants 
forgotten, while Pastor and Mrs. Warner were 
liberally provided for. All details, too, that 
had to do with Mrs. Lambert, were so clearly 
stated that had she survived her husband she 
would still have been guarded by his care. 

But spite this, it truly seemed as though 
the Squire had a premonition that he and his 
wife would leave the world at a time not far 
apart. For, in planning for Honoria, he made 

(179) 



HONORIA. 




i8o 

no mention of the influence her grandmother’s 
life would exert. 

In any case she, Honoria, on her grand- 
father’s death became an heiress. This was 
all expressed in formal legal terms, but when 
it came to giving directions for her future, the 
Squire seemed to forget he was inditing a 
binding document, so peculiar and almost 
wrong, were the restrictions he imposed. 

The first clause stated, that if he died before 
Honoria had completed her school-life, and 
embarked for Scotland and the continental 
tour, that plan was to be relinquished ; and 
she, in its stead, was to immediately sail for 
Jamaica, where she was to remain under her 
father’s guardianship till she came of age. 

Then followed a page in which Squire Lam- 
bert referred to the young girl’s acceptance of 
the spirit of the Holy Grail legends, as a con- 
trolling life influence and inspiration. And 
his wish, that if, when her years counted 
twenty-five she still held allegiance to the 
desire to minister rather than to be minis- 
tered unto,” she should become owner of the 


HONORIA. 


I8l 


Harbor-town estate and mansion, provided 
she opened wide its doors as a place of shelter 
for destitute widows and orphans — consenting 
thus, to find her earthly happiness in serving 
others. 

But, if she decided to marry, then this 
refuge for the needy was to be forfeited, and 
the entire property at Harbor-town given to 
an astronomical association recently formed in 
Boston. 

Judge Bruce and the executors of the will 
did not hesitate in expressing their decided 
disapproval of these latter conditions. 

Nevertheless it was legal — disapproval could 
not change that, nor the fact that the Squire 
when he made it was entirely in his right mind. 

As for Honoria, parts of the will she hardly 
listened to ; she was bewildered, so much had 
come into her life suddenly. She was, too, 
only a girl of eighteen, and the young live in 
the present. The terms of her grandfather’s 
will did not demand decision for seven years 
— and somehow she had no power just then 
to look forward, and she only dimly grasped 


i 82 


HO NORM, 


the idea that her position toward Prof. Stuart 
was involved. 

That she loved him, that he loved her, she 
realized in all the dearness of the knowledge. 
But as at the first she had felt there could be 
no formal engagement without her grand- 
father’s consent, now she felt she must wait 
for her father’s permission — and then — then 
she would think. 

It was really harder for Prof. Stuart those 
days than for Honoria, for, understanding her 
nature as he did, he knew when the time for 
calm thought came, suffering awaited her as 
well as himself. For he knew her grandfather 
had imposed a decision that involved opposing 
duties. 

He knew, too, she would deem it a grave 
thing to cast aside a refuge that would be so 
precious to many lonely, destitute women and 
children for the sake of securing her own per- 
sonal happiness, and even that of one dearer 
than herself. He knew she would ask, What 
did two individuals count against the many ? ” 
and the numberless other subtle questions 


HO NOKIA. 


183 


that would gather around the subject. And 
in his heart Prof. Stuart called the Squire’s 
will not only unjust, but even cruel. 

Ambrose Warner was not far from the same 
opinion — he had been present, and had 
listened to the reading of the paper with a 
face growing sterner every minute, yet as he 
listened, verily he was glad, too, glad that his 
own love for Honoria had been unspoken. 

I have entered more fully into all this, be- 
cause I want to do Prof. Stuart full justice, 
and it is in some measure an excuse for his 
allowing Honoria to sail away, as he did, with- 
out telling her of his youth and early history. 

Yes, she sailed only two 'weeks later for 
Jamaica, the island that in her imagination, 
all her life long, had been a dream of beauty. 
She felt no dread of the voyage as Ambrose 
had feared she would. The sea had always 
been like a friend to her, and its murmuring 
waves were still musicful. She knew, too, 
that — 

“ O’er the deep, 

God’s love eternal watch doth keep.” 


HONORIA, 


184 

And she did not associate the ending of her 
grandparents’ mortal life, so much with the 
ocean as she did with the rocky shore, treach- 
erous reefs, and wild wind. 

She was calm when the hour came for bid- 
ding farewell to the sorrowing company of 
friends who went with her to the ship’s side — 
and who lingered watching it sail away till the 
white sails grew dim — and at last it passed 
beyond the sight of even the most loving 
gazer. 


XIL 


T he days and nights of Honoria’s voyage 
were marked by fair weather, and the 
influence of sky and sea were restful after the 
excitement of the past weeks. 

Sometimes it almost seemed to her as 
though she heard in audible sound the Voice of 
Heavenly Love whispering, “ Peace, be still,” 
and, she was still, and yet her mind was wide 
awake in this quietness of her soul. 

She hardly left, from sunrise until after 
sundown, the low-cushioned seat the captain 
had arranged for her within the shelter of an 
out-jutting corner of the pilot-house. 

It was strange, familiar as she had been 
from childhood with the sea, she yet found 
the being on it, so unlike the being by it. 

The ocean off alone by itself, as she was 
now learning to know it, was so different from 
the story the waves told as they came rolling 

(185) 




HO NOKIA. 


1 86 

landward, following one another in ever rest- 
less pursuit. 

In a letter to Rachel Fleming, Honoria 
tried to explain this sense of rest and unrest 
that mid-ocean and near-shore water gave her. 

‘‘You will know what I mean,” she wrote, 
“ if you watch the waves some day when the 
tide is in-coming. Here in mid-sea they 
seem a type to me of life with God — the life 
of a Christian — while by the shore they are so 
typical of souls, seeking, and yet finding no 
firm foundation, because they struggle so in 
their own strength as it were, each seeming to 
strive to out-reach the other. 

■“Watch the tiny drops, how they throw 
themselves forward, how they struggle up the 
sandy beach, only to straightway glide back 
into the restlessness again. Yes, it is to me, 
like a soul doubting and questioning. I long 
to stand on the shore for a moment just to 
say, ‘ Wait, little waves — do not struggle so — 
by and by the sun will warm you, purify and 
draw you up to float in fleecy clouds across 
the blue sky.’ 


HONOR! A. 


187 

“ But here in mid-ocean it is different — it is 
so much more restful — as though the very 
waves felt the safe encompassing of Him, who 
‘ holds the waters in the hollow of His hand/ 
And, it is natural this should be so, for, by 
the shore, we are like children who call the 
murmur of the sea-shell the song of the sea ; 
whereas that murmur is naught more than a 
faint echo of the great song which has been 
singing on beneath the ocean waves ever since 
God called the gathering * together of the 
waters — seas — and He saw that they were 
good/ 

“ It is so blessed to know, if we listen with 
the heart of faith, we can catch an echo of 
this endless song, which is but another ver- 
sion of the Angels’ song of ‘ Good-will and 
peace,’ and those echoes, if we interpret them 
* into deeds, surely they may become pulse 
beats of the great Life pulsation that thrills 
the universe.” 

This brief extract from one of Honorja’s 
letters, is like hearkening to one song, when 
the singer knows a hundred, for new thoughts 


i88 


JIONORIA. 


came to her every hour — thoughts, that like 
the rounds in Jacob’s ladder, served for step- 
ping-places for angels ascending and descend- 
ing. — For what are holy thoughts, but angels 
whispering to the soul ? 

Yet, spite the peace that filled Honoria’s soul 
with quietness those days, there were problem 
questions, too, that asked for reply, and that 
now and then trailed low their cloud of 
doubt. 

It was well it should be thus, for “ out of 
doubt comes faith,” just as out of grief 
comes hope,” for “ to the upright there ariseth 
light in the darkness.” 

Think what it would be to live in a world 
without shadow. 

Think; 

“ Were there no night we could not read the stars, , 
The heavens would turn into a blinding glare : 

Freedom is best seen through prison bars 
And rough seas make the haven passing fair : 

We can not measure joys, but by their loss. 

When blessings fade away, we see them then ; 

Our richest clusters grow around the cross / 

And in the night-time angels sing to men. 


HONORIA. 


189 


“ The seed must first lie buried deep in earth, 

Before the lily opens to the sky ; 

So light is sown, and gladness has its birth. 

In the dark deeps where we can only cry. 

Life out of Death is Heaven’s unwritten law. 

Nay, it is written in myriad forms. 

The victor’s palm grows on the field of war. 

And strength and beauty are the fruit of 
storms.” 

Chief among the problem questions was 
the ever recurring ^Why?’ Why had her 
life’s outlook so suddenly changed? Why 
had her grandfather involved her future with 
so deep a perplexity? And where did true 
self-denial meet and touch a false idea of 
self-sacrifice ? 

In her journal she thus notes this time 
and its sequel : 

“ I have come to the place,” so she writes, 
where I no longer will try to seek the Why 
of God’s Providences. I am content to feel 
there may be no other reason than that they 
are to make us trust in spite of them, and 
surely these lessons can be best learned by 
living faithfully and truthfully, doing the im- 
mediate duty, rather than reasoning out the 


HO NORM. 


190 

process. And try we ever so hard, we can 
not treat God’s Providences as we do pro- 
cesses in Nature. No — all we have to do is 
to strive to lift ourselves up to them, and let 
them do their work in our souls. 

“ Nature teaches us this, for the flower 
that drinks in the sunshine would not grow 
any better by deciding what it is to become 
through the influence of the sunshine ; all 
it has to do is to expand its leaves and grow, 
giving out the full fragrance with which the 
Lord blesses it.^- — Just doing, that is the 
flower’s part, as it is mine. And I will try to 
look away from self, up to Christ, remember- 
ing ‘ nothing dwarfs the soul more speedily 
than too much introspection,’ because ‘ we are 
such lovers of self we can not long be trusted 
to dwell even on our short-comings ’ ! ” 

I give you this in-look into Honoria’s 
heart-book at that time, that you may know 
something of her mental and spiritual condi- 
tion when she entered on the life of ‘ Gospel 
days’ that followed one the other through 


HONORIA. 


I9I 

the years she spent in the Island home. — 
Years of which her first glimpse of Jamaica’s 
Blue Mountains seemed verily a type. It 
was early morning when she first saw their 
deeper blue sharply defined against the lighter 
tinting of the sky ; and then came a near 
view, that included richly cultivated plains 
and hills, and then Port Royal was sighted. 
And half an hour later a tiny boat came sail- 
ing over the calm water, and though no sig- 
nal was given, Honoria straightway knew the 
tall man that held the rudder was none other 
than her father, whom her grandmother always 
called my laddie — my ain bairn.” 


4 


XIII. 

I T so often happens in life that the most 
intense minutes are closely followed by 
the seemingly trivial. It was so after Hon- 
oria Lambert’s meeting with her father. 
There was a moment of silence, one quick 
embrace, a brief word of welcome, during 
which Ralph Lambert’s voice was tremulous 
with emotion. 

And then it was over, and with the cour- 
tesy of a polished man of the world, rather 
than the tenderness of a parent, he asked or- 
dinary questions in an ordinary tone. 

‘‘Had the voyage proved wearisome?” 
“ Would she have strength for the drive from 
Port Royal to Flamboyante ? ” — this being 
the title by which Mr. Lambert’s home was 
known through the Island ; for so thickly the 
scarlet and yellow flowered plant grew all 

about its near neighborhood. 

(192) 


HONORIA. 


193 

** The little brother and sisters will be 
watching for your coming,” Mr. Lambert 
said, but he made no mention of the mother, 
who, in Honoria’s mind, filled the place of a 
companion she would dearly love, rather than 
holding any maternal relationship. 

Mrs. Lambert was still a comparatively 
young woman, Honoria knew. In fact she 
was not yet forty, though she looked older, 
for her rosy English complexion had faded 
under the tropical sky. There was a tired, 
worn look in her face, too, and a restlessness 
of manner unlike the repose that is wont to 
proclaim nationality. 

Truly, life in this new home could not 
fail to be an experience all unlike her by- 
gone to Honoria. Had her heart been less 
loving she would have caught a hint of this, 
the very hour of arrival, for she would have 
felt more keenly the blank of her father’s 
greeting. But it escaped her, because she 
was too sincere-hearted, too true and full of 
love herself to see anything but the loving 
and the good in others. 

13 


194 


HONORIA. 


This is one of the blessings that belong to 
a loving, sincere nature. It has power to 
diffuse an illumining light which absorbs the 
faults of others, casting them far into the 
background, rather than pressing them into 
foremost view. 

It was a tiny boat which carried passen- 
gers from the Clipper to Port Royal pier. On 
embarking in it, Honoria stole her hand into 
her father’s and nestled close to his side, 
with the confidence of a trusting child. 

It was all strange to her, laughingly she 
said ; she was half afraid. The boat seemed 
like a sea-shell, in comparison with the 
staunch skiff in which she had sailed about 
the Harbor-town coast. -And added to her 
clinging clasp of Mr. Lambert’s hand, she 
looked up into his face with a smile that for 
a second met a responsive smile, for it was 

one of those genuine smiles that originate 
only in the soul.” 

And that smile recurred more than once 
before the Flamboyante gates opened, for 
during the drive that followed their landing. 


HONOR! A, 


195 


Honoria talked as naturally to her father as 
a spring breeze plays over tree-boughs. — And 
this very simplicity and naturalness stirred 
Mr. Lambert’s most tender memories, and 
the best part of his nature. 

Her language was anecdotical. A tale in- 
terblended with light and shade — for she told 
of her grandparents — and the night of the 
sudden storm ; of her happy childhood ; of 
her grandmother’s love for her absent son ; 
of the home-garden, and haunts about the 
shore and in the forest, that had been fa- 
miliar to Ralph Lambert when he was a boy. 

And thus, by being her own true self, 
Honoria traced in her father’s mind and heart 
the first impressions of the influence which 
made her life in his home a Gospel life, not 
only to him, but to all who knew her. 

In spite of all this, I do not want you to 
picture Honoria as a marvel of a girl, be- 
cause she was not. — I can think this minute 
of many maidens whom I know, with minds 
as quick, hearts as tender. What, then, was 
the secret of her influence ? 


196 


HONORIA. 


In one of Robertson’s sermons he gives a 
rule, which holds the best reply I know to 
that question, for Honoria lived in the spirit 
of the words : 

“ The first lesson of Christian life is this, 
be true ; and the second this, be true; and 
the third this, be true'* 

Living in this spirit, how could her influ- 
ence help being what it was, for of necessity 
it became a reflection of the Truth taught 
by Him who said, “ I am the Way, the 
Truth, and the Life.” 


PART III. 


If each for each be all he can, 
A very God is man to man.” 


L 


I T would be difficult to picture a life more 
unlike her past than that which Honoria 
led during the years she spent in Jamaica. 

She was by nature of an adaptive tempera- 
ment ; hence she accepted the strangeness of 
her surroundings with an easy grace that 
made her a general favorite. Nevertheless, 
she lived much alone, for it was long before 
any one came close to her heart in responsive 
sympathy with the earnest side of life, and it 
was that side which meant most to her. Still, 
her loneliness was not a thing to regret, for it 
proved a time of spiritual growth. It is wont 
to be thus when one is forced “ to listen to 
their own souls, and the Voice of the Lord 
speaking therein.” 

I suppose this is why these pause-places 
come in life, shutting us in, as it were, alone 
with God and self. Places where we are fed 

(199) 


200 


HONORIA. 


with the Heavenly Manna, that food of the 
mind which is Truth ; of the heart which is 
Love.” 

To Honoria there was abundant food, too, 
for her eyes — for Nature in that tropical 
island unfolded a wealth of enjoyment for one 
who delighted in Nature as she did. 

But spite this, and the blessed fact of her 
soul’s felt nearness to the Infinite, it was a 
dreary time in many ways to our Honoria. 
And, this showed no lack of trust in God on 
her part, no lack of love in the Lord’s tender 
encompassing care over her. For God had 
sent the trials, and He meant them to work 
their work of discipline. 

Remember it is written, “ Whom the Lord 
loveth He chasteneth,” — and “No chastening 
for the present seemeth joyous, but afterward 
it yieldeth peaceable fruits.” Ah ! think of 
that ' afterward ’ ! 

Certain it is, that while for Honoria every 
passing day for many a month only served to 
deepen her longing for her grandparents, she 
yet, through her very loneliness and sorrow, 
made blessed discoveries. 


HONOIilA. 


201 


Perhaps one of the most precious to a 
mind like hers — that from childhood had 
sought the Why ? — was the recognizing that 
there is nothing wrong in our asking out of 
deep grief ‘‘Why?” If only we ask in the 
right spirit — and not the spirit of “ What have 
I done that I suffer thus?” — not the spirit 
that borders on complaint, and even reproach 
against the Lord who sent the trial. For that 
is not the Christian way of asking “ Why ? ” 
No; the Christian “Why?” comes from a 
humble, contrite heart, that seeks with earnest 
desire to know the Truth hidden in sorrow 
that thus God’s rod may become God’s staff. 

Honoria missed her friends, too, and the 
perplexity of conflicting duties imposed by 
her grandfather’s will sometimes pressed for 
answer, even though she had said to that 
question — “Wait till the time comes.” 

But through all emotions, peaceful and per- 
plexing alike. Prof. Stuart’s few words of love 
still kept their place in her heart, and all the 
time they were gaining a greater dearness. 

The fact that he had made no reference to 


202 


HONORIA. 


them when they parted, did not trouble her ; 
she appreciated that his silence was caused by 
her changed position, not by any change in 
his feelings — his farewell gaze told her this. 

Beside the memory of that look, Honoria 
still wore the slender gold ring he had slipped 
on her finger. A mute token — but it always 
seemed to smile at her whenever she looked 
at her hand. And yet, through the secret 
that ring held, and which Andrew Stuart had 
weakly refrained from telling, trouble was all 
the time coming nearer to Honoria. The 
bitterest sorrow that can out-spring from love 
— even doubt of the one loved. 

But all this is a far wandering from Honoria’s 
arrival at Flamboyante, where even the trees 
and flowers, birds and insects were strange to 
her. An unlikeness so all-pervading it ex- 
tended to the azure of the sky, and the color- 
ing of the water of the Bay, while, as for the 
High-road, that led by the way of the open 
country to her father’s home, it was a pro- 
longed marvel of before unknown floral beau- 
ty. On either side it was bordered by hedges 


HONORIA, 


203 


of cactus and dagger-plants, over which wild 
jasmine and light blue and scarlet convolvuli 
wreathed their flowery pendants of bloom, 
while the whole landscape glowed with a 
golden tint caught from the bushes of alla- 
mandas that were in full yellow blossom. 

On passing through the entrance gate, this 
shimmer of golden light was increased by the 
wind playing over the flower-laden bushes, 
till everything seemed bathed in a glory of 
softened brightness. 

But when within the home enclosure Hon- 
oria had no thought for golden light, grace- 
ful vine, or fragrant flowers, so eager was she 
to catch sight of the brother and little sisters 
whom her father said would be watching for 
her coming. 

True enough, they were waiting. A sud- 
den turn in the drive brought the group in 
full sight. A pretty picture, standing as they 
were among flowers of every color, and be- 
neath the shade of a mango-tree that was half 
hidden by a creeping vine that clung in 
picturesque intwining over boughs and leafage. 


204 


HO NORM. 


But though Nature’s tinting of flower and 
shrub was all so brilliant, the children were 
pale-faced little creatures, looking even more 
so in contrast with their swarthy nurse in her 
gay turban and bright-hued gown. They were 
timid children too. Honoria, quick as she was 
to meet gladness by gladness, immediately felt 
their lack of joyous child-life, as one after the 
other they lifted their little faces for her to 
kiss. 

But before she had time to wonder over it, 
their mother slowly advanced, and at sight of 
her, Honoria, not waiting for her father’s 
somewhat formal introduction, sped across 
the flower-starred turf, and with an ease of 
motion, that was graceful as a blossom shaken 
from a tree, she met with a clasp of affection 
the hand extended toward her. 

And watching the meeting of daughter and 
step-mother, Mr. Lambert smiled again, the 
smile that lit up his countenance with a light 
new to it. 

Even the children straightway seemed to 
catch the happiness Honoria’s presence dif- 


HONORIA. 


205 


fused, for when their mother bade the nurse 
keep them half an hour longer out in the still 
dewy freshness of the early morning, their 
little faces clouded with disappointment, and 
the boy Fergus took a tight hold of Hon- 
oria’s dress, as he ventured to plead that he 
might stay with his new sister. 

Mrs. Lambert’s refusal was decided, but 
she immediately yielded when his father in- 
terfered, saying : 

“ Let the lad have his way for once,” and 
with a laugh that his children did not often 
hear, he added, ‘‘A new sister is not to be 
found every day, like a new flower.” 

And so, the husband and wife, Honoria 
and little Fergus stepped across the thres- 
hold of the home. A threshold which opened 
on a broad gallery, wide as an ordinary room, 
and where a light repast was spread for the 
travellers. 

Soon after, Mrs. Lambert proposed show- 
ing Honoria the rooms prepared for her, and 
together they went up the winding stair- 


way. 


2o6 


HONORIA. 


There were two rooms — a sitting-room and 
a bedroom ; both had an air of English com- 
fort, and were fitted up with more of luxury 
than she had expected, used as she was to 
New England simplicity. But their chief 
charm were the views from the wide win- 
dows, that all opened on to balconies that 
were overhung with flowering vines. 

All this time Fergus had kept close to 
Honoria. With a child’s quick instinct he 
discovered he had found a friend as well as a 
sister. And verily he had — a friend tender 
and loving, who even that very first day be- 
gan to help the boy — for noticing how his 
soul was stirred by the beauty of nature, she 
made no delay in telling him of the Heavenly 
Father who made all beauty. 

And so her Gospel work in the Island home 
began — first, by causing her father to smile — 
a soul smile, and next, by guiding a child’s 
thoughts upward. And Christ said, “ Who- 
soever shall give to drink unto one of these 
little ones a cup of cold water only in the 
name of a disciple, verily, I say unto you, he 
shall in no wise lose his reward.” 


11 . 


N ot more than three months after 
Honoria’s arrival, her father suddenly- 
announced that on the morrow he expected 
to leave homa for an indefinite time. An 
announcement which met with a quick re- 
monstrance on Mrs. Lambert’s part ; and yet 
blended in with the petulance of her words, 
there sounded a note of anxiety that roused 
Honoria’s sympathy. An emotion she was 
not apt to feel toward her step-mother, for 
there was about Mrs. Lambert much which 
sorely tried her; and she often blamed her- 
self for harshness of judgment. Oftener, in 
fact, than she was to blame, for Mrs. Lambert 
had in her the power of being a very different 
wife and mother. 

But, like many another woman, when a few 
months after marriage she met the fact that 

she was to know much of disappointment, she 

(207) 


208 


HONORIA. 




weakly yielded, instead of bravely striving to 
conquer adverse circumstances rather than 
letting them conquer her. 

One great mistake she made was the sadly 
commonplace one of letting her mind go 
empty, because she did not always meet with 
responsive sympathy from her husband ; and 
perhaps there is nothing that so soon dims a 
husband’s love as daily contact with an empty 
mind. For mind is so much more than body, 
that a bright, intelligent mind, an understand- 
ing smile will hold affection with a firmer and 
more abiding clasp than the mere charm of 
youthful beauty of form or feature. 

But, as a partial excuse for Mrs. Lambert, I 
must tell that her disappointment had been 
bitter, and her anxiety was wearing and con- 
stant. For Ralph Lambert’s early lack of 
rectitude had not diminished with age. He 
w^as a false man — just as he had been a false 
boy and youth. And added to this, not long 
after his second marriage a reckless spirit of 
speculation had taken possession of him. 

More than once, — and this his wife knew, — 


HONORIA. 


209 


he had even ventured to run the risk of losing 
his home, and all for some game of chance. 
As for his estate, it was deeply involved at the 
time of his parents’ death. Then the increase 
of income that came to him lifted the pressure 
of pecuniary care for a time ; and with that 
burden eased, hope had filled his wife’s heart, 
especially after Honoria’s coming had made 
home bright and attractive to him once more ; 
but at the first word of home-leaving Mrs. 
Lambert’s heart sank. 

It was the first open disagreement at which 
Honoria had been present, and it hurt her 
almost as keenly as if she had been a sharer 
in the contest of words. 

I will not tarry over the details of that 
hour ; I only refer to it that you may know of 
Honoria’s experiences, and the lessons that 
came to her through them. Hard lessons for 
a young, tender heart to learn — and yet 
through their teaching she came to know that 
dear as happiness is, there is a blessing still 
better; she came to understand, with a depth 
of earnestness she might otherwise have failed 

14 


210 


HONORIA. 


to feel so intensely, “ that earthly life is not 
the Right of happiness, it is the Duty of de- 
velopment.” — 

She came to feel, too, 

** Through sharpest anguish hearts may wring, 

Yet, suffering is a holy thing ; 

Without it, what were we ? ” 

Elevation through sorrow, whatever the 
sorrow may be, it was this Honoria strove to 
attain — and its first fruit was desire for work, 
and “ the desire to work for God is always a 
desire which is granted.” 

She began in a simple way; first a daily 
school, only lasting two hours — for the native 
children — and then a Bible reading for the 
plantation workers and the home servants. 

Her father made light of her effort ; never- 
theless, he more than once joined the little 
company of a Sabbath afternoon, as they met 
under the mango-trees. 

Meanwhile, as she sought to help others, her 
own soul became more conscious of its own 
needs and weakness — for it seemed those days 


IIONORIA. 


2II 


/ 

as though she had to struggle with more 
faulty tendencies in herself than she had ever 
known before. And the higher she mounted 
in the spiritual life, the closer she was drawn 
to the weak and feeble of will and purpose, 
and so her work increased. 

All the time, if you had asked her what she 
was doing, she would have replied — ‘‘Only 
the least little things.” And if you had 
added, “ Perhaps in the ‘ little things ’ you will 
find the hidden treasure, the San Grail,” she 
would have said, “ No ; oh, no.” And yet, 
had she not found it? For what is that Holy 
thing that wins for the possessor a Heavenly 
Blessing? Lowly service, I think, rendered 
for Christ’s sake. 

But it was better, that to Honoria it was 
still a treasure, “ higher up ” than she had yet 
attained. Just as it is better that while here 
on earth, we should not be able to solve all 
the doubts and fears that assail the soul. 
For if we could, we should win the crown 
before the crowning day. And crowning is 
not for here. “ There remaineth a rest for 


212 


ffONORIA. 


the people of God.” — “ Be thou faithful unto 
death,” and then, the ‘‘ Crown of Life.” 

Honoria wrote Ambrose Warner freely as 
she would have done had he been her brother, 
and in telling him of this time she calls her 
experiences “ threefold.” Her letter reads : 

“ First, I am brought close to the mystery 
of the Unseen, — close, to that silence, which 
with all my longing I am powerless to break. 

“ The next experience is a new insight into 
the evil of this world, and the emptiness of 
hearts, the bitterness of a living sorrow. 

And the next is the being brought face to 
face with the soul’s limitations, and the great 
army of perplexing questions that come troop- 
ing into one’s mind as life broadens its outlook. 

“ I am planning writing you three letters 
— each one stating a separate experience — 
and then, when your replies come, I will bind 
them into a threefold wisdom-full page and 
keep it within reach of my hand, so that when 
I am more than wontedly bewildered I can 
read them and they will make all plain. 


HO NOKIA. 


213 


“But as I write this, I almost seem to 
hear you say — ‘ Look for the solving of your 
questions not to man’s wisdom, but off unto 
Jesus.’ And I do try to look to Him. But 
—I long for human companionship, too. Is 
it wrong ? ” 

I will copy extracts from these three letters 
as Honoria wrote them, for if she is to be to 
you a “ Gospel,” you need to know the way 
she trod before her soul came into the clear 
shining of that Gospel light promised the 
seeking soul. It is a wonderful promise 
“ Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, 
and lay thy foundations with sapphires ; and I 
will make thy windows of agates, and thy 
gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of 
pleasant stones.” 


III. 


COPY OF LETTER TO AMBROSE WARNER. 

“ Flamboyante, Island of Jamaica. 

‘‘ I said I would ask you to tell me of the 
Unseen. Ask you to explain for me the 
mystery of death here, as a condition of our 
entrance to life There, But, how can you 
explain when no Voice has come back to 
tell us of the Beyond? — And yet, so many 
thoughts have come to me as I sorrow for my 
departed ; thoughts that hold so much of 
comfort, I would fain know, have I a right 
to let them come murmuring consolation, as 
though they were in very truth angel whis- 
pers? 

“ Even for the heart-breaking silence I have 
found soothing, for is not this silence on the 
part of our dear ones, in essence like the si- 
lence of our Saviour who said, ‘ It is expedi- 
(214) 


HON OKI A. 


215 


ent for you that I go away, for if I go away, 
I will send the Comforter to you, and He will 
bring all things to your remembrance ’ ? W ere 
there ever words so wide in their embrace 
as those two — ‘ all thingsl — ^Think how, in 
the first hours of anguish they come freighted 
with the assurance that our loved ones are 
safe. 

If we ask — Why ? — they bring to remem- 
brance Christ’s own answer, ' I go to prepare 
a place for you. I will receive you unto my- 
self.’ — This sureness that they are with Christ, 
whether they sleep or whether they wake, is 
to me the uplifting clasp of the Everlasting 
Arms in the darkest hour of grief. 

‘'And then, though I do not well know 
how to put it into words, we who stay here 
on earth seem brought by great sorrow into 
so near a fellowship with the Risen Lord. 
It is as though we were being permitted, too, 
to bear some part of the woe this world bears 
for sin, lifting it up as it were with Christ, 
for had there been no sin there would have 
been no sorrow. And when the sorrow comes 


2i6 


HONOR! A. 


as mine has come through the departure of 
father and mother — for my grandparents 
were that to me — it seems such a wondrously 
close nearness to Him, for He must know 
all about it. He who is touched with feeling 
for us — He who knew for a moment the hiding 
of the Father’s face. Yes, surely, by the cry, 

* Why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ’ we may know 
that He knew the agony of separation, even 
the loneliness of orphanhood. And yet He 
will not leave us orphans, for He said, ‘ I 
will come unto you.’ 

“Tell me — is it wrong for me to call the 
consolations that come from these thoughts 
my ‘ Cleft in the Rock ’ ? 

“ Other comforts shine, too, out of the 
‘ all things^ brought to remembrance by the 
Holy Spirit — for I think the all things ’ in- 
clude the truth that 

“ ‘ Every bird that sings, 

And every flower that stars the elastic sod. 
And every breath the summer brings 
To the pure spirit is a word of God.’ 

“ Ah ! to have a heart so crystal pure, that 

* all things ’ reflected in it would become thus 


HO NOKIA. 


•217 


a message from the Unseen^ that shines 
through the Seen, assuring us heavenly reali- 
ties surround our beloved ones, even as 
earthly realities now surround us. Feeling 
thus, I look at the beauty all around me, 
sometimes through glad tears of wonderment, 
for it is written, ‘ Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of 
man what God hath prepared for them that 
love Him.’ And my grandparents did love 
God— and think of the beauty they now be- 
hold ! Every hour of grandmamma’s life, I 
think, was passed in the recognized Presence 
of the Unseen Friend, she so often reminded 
me of the man of old ‘who walked with 
God.’ And now, she no longer walks with 
Him here, but truly I think she does There, 
amid the green pasture-lands of Heaven, and 
by the still waters of the River of Life. 

“ The beauty of holiness her dear example 
taught me ; and is not the having such a 
‘ remembrance ’ a blessing even in the bitter- 
ness of loneliness ? I think it is. 

“ I said my eyes sometimes fill with tears 


2l8 . 


HONORIA. 


of glad wonderment as I think of all they are 
seeing now ; but sometimes I shed other 
tears, tears of sorrow for my own self, and 
there is nothing that is. so weak as self-pity ; 
nevertheless, even when I do thus weep, I 
am over-arched by the rainbow of sympathy — 
for ‘Jesus wept/ He knows the meaning 
and the why of all tears. 

“ What puzzles me most in my thoughts of 
those gone to Heaven, is almost a contradic- 
tion in my own feelings. I believe they live, 
for Christ said — ‘ In me shall all be made 
alive.’ Heaven is no far-off place. What we 
call crossing the ‘ River of Death,’ is no long 
journey — one minute here, the next there. 
Yes — I believe it is no more than going ‘ from 
one room into another.’ And yet, after that 
going, all is changed. You are miles and 
miles away from me ; but, as I write, the miles 
are as nothing — because I feel your hand wdll 
hold what my hand has written — your eye 
read what my heart is saying, but with them 
there is no such meeting. Try and try, 
though I may, I can not bridge the silence 
and the mystery. 


HONORIA, 


219 


“ How strange it is, that we thus feel the 
binding limitations of mortality even at the 
very time we feel most sure of our immortality. 
For Heaven does open before the pass-word 
‘ Faith.’ And faith lights up the way our 
dear ones have gone — like a beacon shining 
from the Old on to the New Testament. Its 
central glory — ‘ Christ is Risen' The Christ 
without whom no Christian dies. Think, 
from Heaven the Risen Lord looks down and 
sees one, and then another, and He prays — 
‘ Father, let this one be with me — even here, 
where I am.’ And the reaping angels gather 
in a safe enfolding the one for whom the 
Saviour asks — and earth is left for Heaven. 
I wonder we so dread the dying hour, when 
we believe it is the path leading to Life. 

“ But, my letter is lengthening beyond mail- 
bag limits — and your patience, too, I ween. 
Still, there is much I long to write— the 
beauty that is so everywhere in this fair island 
of the sea, makes me so feel the Infinite— and 
' Nature enfoldeth a lesson sweet to me,’ that 
I fain would share with you.” 


IV. 


EXTRACTS FROM THE SECOND OF HONORIA’S 
“threefold” LETTERS. 

OU will think me like the Indians, of 



JL whom they tell that when they come 
to some difficult mountain pass, new and 
strange, they choose the wisest man for a 
leader, ‘ and they follow his guidance so 
closely that though thousands tread the same 
path it shows the foot-prints of but one.’ For 
I want to ask your guidance, and then follow 
it closely in meeting the trouble that I call 
‘ a living trial.’ I can not give you the details, 
but I want to ask is the help I have found in 
bearing this sorrow a right help? For, some- 
times I fear lest I may find comfort, not so 
much from the Spirit’s revealing as from my 
own thoughts. But — can we call thoughts 
our own? Do they not come to us from 


(220) 


HONORJA. 


221 


Above, like all good gifts? I know you will 
answer, Yes. 

“ To return to the special trial of which I 
write— it does not seem to me a trouble of 
God’s ‘ sending,’ so much as man’s making. 

Can we make this distinction ? 

“ When first I came to know how the inno- 
cent suffer through and for the wrong-doing 
of the guilty, I was almost crushed by the 
knowledge. And then — I found help where I 
found it when my first life-sorrow came. 

But I repeat, before I take the full com- 
fort of what seems to me a shining truth, I 
want to ask you if I am justified in taking it. 
What 1 would express is that in the Bible, 
like a tide underlying the onward flow of a 
broad river, there runs a statement of Truth 
that is made from the stand-point of history 
< A thread of history, as it were, developing 
revelation.’ 

Thinking thus when I read the Psalms 
and the Prophets, the Gospels and the Epis- 
tles, they become to me the outgrowth of 
some real life experience. And regarding 


222 


HONORIA. 


them thus gives me an added strength to 
meet the evil of the world. You know from 
Genesis on how we find example after example 
of men rising from the depths of sinfulness to 
the heights of holiness. And this gives such en- 
couragement for those we love, and who fail and 
fall — such encouragement for our own failures. 

“And now, follow for a minute the thought 
that the Bible is an outgrowth of real experi- 
ences as well as an inspired revelation. And 
tell me, do / carry the thought too far ? It 
grows so full ; for may we not believe that 
our Saviour taught from the inner history of 
His own life ? — and by this does He not lift us 
up into a nearer possibility of sharing in His 
sympathy and pity for sorrowing, sinning men 
and women, till it is not the sinner we shrink 
from, but the sin ? 

“ Then, too, as we catch fuller inlooks into 
His perfect holiness — * tempted, yet without 
sin’ — we so see our own distance from per- 
fection, truly after such a sight of our own 
evil hearts, how can we help being tender to 
all who fail ? 


HONORIA. 


223 


» I was interrupted yesterday by one of the 
Lord’s chosen teachers— a child. 1 some- 

times think this little brother of mine teaches 
me more than ever I can teach him. He is 
such a trustful child, and he tries so hard to 
overcome his faults. What a proof of divine 
wisdom shines in the child example Christ 
gave. In such things we see inspiration for 
no one child, as we know childhood, could 
stand forth a perfect example— and so it is 
commanded, ‘become as a little child. 

The last page of Honoria’s letter is quite 
unlike the grave thoughts I have copied, for 
it tells of a drive out beyond the confines of 
the “ Plantation ” — out into the very heart of 
the Island’s beauty. 

“ If I were a fairy,” thus she writes, I 
would touch your dreams to-night and bid 
you gaze on the beauty we beheld— the 

means Fergus and myself. 

“Such a contrast of color as was spread 
out before us, words can give no more than a 
hint of the wondrous effect. ‘ Purple, crim- 


224 


HONORIA. 


son, and scarlet, like the curtains of God’s 
tabernacle.’ And oh, the flowers, the flow- 
ers ! — and yet, a sweet-briar rose that it took 
but a moment to gather and fasten in my 
belt, meant more to me than all the tropical 
wealth of blossoms. For, all in a moment, it 
lifted my heart across the wide stretch of 
ocean miles, and I was home again — in the 
dear old garden. — Yes, for a moment, I felt 
like a child once more, walking the familiar 
paths with my hand held safe in my grand- 
father’s. — But it was only a moment, and 
then I was here again, answering Fergus as 
he asked question after question. 

It was moonlight when we returned by 
the way of Port Royal. The waters of the 
Bay were as smooth as glass, and all aglow, 
not with silvery moonshine like that which 
falls on the Harbor at home, but with the 
golden light of this tropical region where 
brightness of color is queen.” 


V. 


EXTRACTS FROM HONORIA’S THIRD LETTER. 

'‘’"VrOUR reply to my letters has come. 

J- And you tell me thoughts that out- 
shine from pondering God’s Word can not 
be wrong. — But, you give me two warnings — 
one, that I must remember I may not 
always walk in the clear light of faith, as I 
have done these last months — and then you 
bid me remember while meditation is wont 
to bring a blessing, we must be careful not 
to take it upon ourselves to decide who, in a 
spiritual sense, shall be the nuns and monks 
in God’s service, and who the soldiers of the 
cross. You tell me while the fruits of the 
spirit are nourished by meditation, yet they 
grow strong by exposure to wind and storm, 
sunshine and shadow. — I think what you 
mean is, that what we have to do is to work 
15 (225) 


226 


HONORIA, 


out our salvation, Christ working in us, and 
choosing the conditions of our service. — 
Hence, if His work is to perfect grace in us 
by hermit-like discipline. He will lead us into 
sick-rooms, and by nightly vigils to a fuller 
knowledge of the ‘ Life hid with Christ in 
God,’ or if it be that we are to wage a war- 
fare with the temptations that assail an 
active life. He will lead us out and into it 
as He did the crusaders of old. What we 
have to do is to hold our hearts open to His 
leading — and not warp them by one-sided 
clinging to aggressive or meditative life. I 
see the danger you fear for me. I will try 
to remember both warnings, the one held in 
the words, ‘ A want of faith is sometimes 
permitted as a trial of faith ’ — and the one 
suggested in the words, ^ sometimes for the 
sake of life we lose the ends which make life 
worth living.’ 

I see, even the trying to fashion self after 
the pattern of heavenly things demands great 
watchfulness and close keeping to Christ, lest 
it weaken into self-absorption. The thought 


HONORIA. 


227 


you gave me, which I want to fix in my 
memory next to this danger is so full. ‘ The 
working in us is God’s part, the working out 
in word, act, thought, character, is ours' 
Indeed I will try to work out. And I am 
finding new opportunities every day, for here 
on the Island so many hearts ache, spite the 
care-free manner of the natives ; and the story 
of Jesus is so dear to them when once they 
catch its holy meaning. 

‘‘ Only last evening, sitting in the moon- 
glow, with the whisper of the leaves over- 
head, and the air laden with the hum of in- 
sect life, I told a weeping girl — a nut-brown 
mulatto— the simple story of Redeeming 
Love, and all day long I have heard in my 
heart her murmured words — ‘But — will He 
love me — me ? ’ 

“The children’s mother, Mrs. Lambert, 
was standing by my side as I told the story 
of Love, and she stole her hand into mine, 
though she is not wont to show affection — 
and I knew it was because she too had lis- 
tened. When we were alone she asked : ‘ Do 


228 


HO NOKIA. 


you believe it all ? ’ adding — ‘ speculation 
and doubt have darkened so much/ ‘It is 
Christ’s promise,’ I answered ; ‘ If any man 
will do His will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine whether it be of God.’ — And then I was 
still, while the soft voice of Nature seemed to 
take up the sacred words and enforce them. 
It was an hour of such holy calm and beauty. 

“ But presently Mrs. Lambert said, ‘ I find 
the conditions of becoming a Christian so 
hard.’ — Then came a thought of your letter — 
and I replied, ‘ “ It is God who worketh in 
us to will and to do.” Ask Him, and help is 
sure.’ — But she only repeated, ‘ It is so hard, 
and how is one to get the hardness out when 
once it is in the heart?’ — For a moment I 
did not know what to answer — then I told 
her, the hardness would not go by thinking 
about it, and trying to make feeling ; but by 
going just as she was to Christ because she 
needed Him. 

“We did not talk much longer, but as we 
parted for the night she kissed me, and whis- 
pered, ‘ You have helped me.’ 


HO NOKIA. 


229 


“ Since then I have been wondering if 
‘helping others,’ may not be the Holy Grail 
God means me to seek. ‘ Helping others,’ 
even though the task be a lowly service, — it 
would surely be a blessed one. To render 
it, I must ‘ not be afraid to touch the 
wrong, only afraid to let myself be touched 
by it.’ 

“ One thing troubles me — it is why I find 
it so much more difficult to speak with those 
near to me by the tie of kinship, than I do to 
strangers. ‘ Why are the nearest sometimes 
the farthest apart ? ’ Only sometimes, thank 
God — and after all, who knows how near our 
nearest may be in reality, even when no word 
is spoken. Influence does not need words, 
and influence is all the time going out from 
us whether we will or no, just as fragrance 
goes out from a flower. But this does not 
fully solve my difficulty. 

“What openings out of mysteries there 
will be when we pass beyond the limits of 
mystery, on to where ‘ we shall know, even 
as we are known.’ ” 


230 


HONORIA. 


I will copy no more extracts from Honoria’s 
letters, for it is time now for us to pass on 
to an experience when God led her no longer 
by sunshine, but by clouds. — But amid the 
clouds, she never forgot it was God, her 
Heavenly Father, who thus led ; and so the 
clouds only hid the sunshine — they did not 
put it out. 


VI. 


J UST here we must return to the bygone 
for a brief space, for I have neglected to 
say, that not more than a day after Honoria’s 
arrival at Flamboyante she had told her father 
of Prof. Stuart’s love for her — a love to which 
her own heart responded. 

Mr. Lambert had listened with a clouded 
brow, and as Honoria ceased speaking, he had 
gravely replied, “ No, he could not consent 
to any formal engagement during the years 
that 'must pass before she came of a legal age 
to decide for herself.” And he had added— 
if then she consented to wed this middle- 
aaed Professor, it would be in open opposi- 
tion to his will. He was kind, even affec- 
tionate, as he said all this, but Honoria’s 
quick instinct told her he was not a man to 
be moved by any plea she might urge. 


232 


HONOR! A. 


In his answer to Prof. Stuart’s letter — 
which came by the same vessel that brought 
Honoria — Mr. Lambert had been even more 
stern and decided. He handed this reply to 
Honoria before mailing it — and bade her note 
the terms he had set to correspondence, which 
he limited to a semi-annual exchange of letters 
— and they were to be free from all sentiment 
and binding pledges. 

Honoria had been trained to obedience — 
remember, her story dates long ago — and she 
had accepted without a word her father’s ver- 
dict ; for the time he had a right to control 
her; after that — and Honoria had smiled a 
heart smile, while the finger of one hand ten- 
derly passed back and forth over the little ring 
she wore on the other. 

She was loyal by nature, too, and she could 
wait and trust — she did not need a constant 
repetition of love. 

Undoubtedly the being debarred from free- 
dom of correspondence with Prof. Stuart, 
had led Honoria into writing more fully and 
frankly to Ambrose Warner than she would 


HONORIA, 


233 


otherwise have done. And in one of her first 
letters to him, she told with the open-hearted- 
ness of a true sister much the same story she 
had told her father — adding Mr. Lambert’s de- 
cision, and her trust, and willingness to wait. 
And for then, and on during the waiting 
years, though her mind was often sorely per- 
plexed by the conditions of her grandfather’s 
will, she felt the promise given before she 
knew those conditions was a sacred promise, 
that only unworthiness on her part or Prof. 
Stuart’s could annul. 

Now I turn for a moment to Ambrose War- 
ner. It was well he knew through Honoria’s 
own telling the story of her heart, and that she 
never would be more to him than the dear 
sister she called herself. 

For, knowing this, he manfully struggled, 
not to let the disappointment of hopes that 
had been dear as his life, darken that life— 
and he conquered. 

During the year that followed Honoria’s 
home-leaving, it so happened that Ambrose 
and Rachel often met. Naturally they were 


HONORIA. 


234 

attracted to one another — first, because of 
their mutual friendship for Honoria, and then 
by sympathy in fnany.points of interest! And 
— to make a long story very brief — before the 
time for Honoria’s return came, they were 
man and wife, and happy in a home of their 
own.. 

But it is not with them we have to do, only 
in so far as their lives touched our Honoria’s, 
and these facts tell enough. 

Three years ! they look so endless in antici- 
pation — so brief in retrospection ; during 
them, Honoria’s trustful love had never once 
failed. Hence she passed from sunshine into 
shadow with no preparation for what came, 
and her heart bowed before the simple fact, 
as a reed beneath stormful wind and beating 
rain ; only, she did not spring back into happy 
trustfulness, as the reed up-springs when rain 
and wind are over and gone. 

That she was Prof. Stuart’s first and only 
love, somehow she had never questioned. 
She knew but little of human heart-stories. 


HONORIA. 


235 


Her life had been simple, and tenderly guard- 
ed, and from the remoteness of Harbor-town 
she had been shut away from society — while 
at school the days had been duplicates the 
one of another. Then, too, she was not 
given to intimate friendships — her grand- 
parents and Ambrose Warner had sufficed 
till she knew Rachel — and then had come 
the affection for Prof. Stuart, that all sud- 
denly she found was love. 

After that, even in the midst of grief, a 
restful joyfulness had come into her heart ; 
and parted as she and Prof. Stuart were so 
almost immediately — the poetry of love per- 
chance crowded out the prose, and she never 
thought much of his early life. But had he 
told her at the very first, — even before he 
whispered his love for her, — that in the far- 
-off days of his youth he had won and wed a 
Scotch maiden, fair as a lily and as fragile, 
Honoria would have accepted the truth with 
no more feeling, than the natural feeling all 
women have, that there is an added dearness 
in being first and only. Yes, she would have 


HONORIA. 


236 

accepted this, for she was entirely free from all 
bitterness and petty jealousy — I do not think 
it would have shadowed her happiness, ex- 
cept by a thought of tender regret for the 
early sorrow that had come to the man she 
loved — and a thought of tenderness, too, as 
she pictured the lonely grave in the distant 
Scotch kirkyard. 

But not to have been told ! How it hurt 
Honoria! — hurt her so keenly, that though 
she was wont to be gentle, and eager in seek- 
ing excuse for the faults of others, the power 
failed her for a time — and even forgiveness 
tarried, and was hard to attain. 

It was her first experience in ^//^-idealizing ; 
and there are some souls to whom this is 
almost a sadder experience than actual loss. 
And Honoria Lambert’s soul was one of 
these. The way, too, in which the knowledge 
came to her, made it all the harder.. It was 
the harvest season on the coffee plantation, 
always a busy season for every dweller at 
Flamboyante. And Honoria, having by this 
time become only too familiar with her fa- 


HONOR !A. 


237 


ther’s lack of business rectitude, had assumed 
charge of certain details, in the matter of 
weight and estimate of value. 

Many an hour she and her faithful little 
knight, Fergus, spent on the plantation seek- 
ing, as the day advanced, the shelter of one 
or the other of the “ Barbecues,” as the natives 
called the houses which contained the thresh- 
ing floors, and drying-rooms where the little 
berries were prepared for shipment to lands 
beyond the sea. 

On the day of which I tell, the heat in- 
creased early, and two hours after sunrise 
Honoria and Fergus were sitting on the 
broad. porch of the upper “Barbecue.” Fer- 
gus had soon tired of threading the tiny red 
berries, that like tares among wheat, found 
their way among the perfect beans, and he 
laid his curly head on Honoria s knee, 
straightway falling into the peaceful sleep of 
childhood. 

Honoria was weary too, and she pushed 
aside the account-book with its long lines of 
figures, while she leaned her head against the 


238 


HO NOKIA. 


vine-covered column that helped uphold the 
sheltering porch ; and like the boy, she, too, 
closed her eyes ; but her heart was wide 
awake, for she was thinking, only a month 
from that very day she would be of age,” 
free to love, and free to sail over the wide 
water, home, to the dear land of America. — 
And, the thought was like a song in her 
heart. 

A sudden movement on the part of the sleep- 
ing boy caused her to Open her eyes, and 
with a touch gentle as a caress, she smoothed 
the hair back from the child’s flushed face ; 
as she did it her gaze rested on the ring Prof. 
Stuart had slipped on her finger so long ago — 
three years ! — And then she lifted her hand 
to untwist from the golden circlet one of 
Fergus’ long curls that had become entangled 
around it ; and, for the first time she noticed 
it was a halved ring — and the boy’s curl, one 
hair of it, had worked its way between the 
tight clasp of the two parts. So entangled 
had it become, that even though Honoria 
shivered as she did it, she was forced to slip 


HO NOKIA. 


239 


the ring from her finger. And, with one of 
those sudden impulses that we never can ex- 
plain, she pressed her finger on the dividing 
line — and she held two rings, when she had 
thought there was but one. 

And — yes — surely, surely — there were tiny 
letters traced on the slender golden circles. — 
“ It was his mother’s,” softly she said — “ it is 
a wedding ring ” — and tenderly as she would 
have stooped to gather a flower from a grave, 
Honoria bent her head low as she sought to 
read the faintly traced names. But they 
were not the names she thought to find, — 
Anna Maxwell — Andrew Stuart. No, they 
were not the names of Andrew’s parents. 

After that, darkness came into Honoria’s 
soul. Truly, she was as one mist-bewil- 
dered. — 

So long were the intervals between out-go- 
ing and in-coming mails, there on the Island 
of Jamaica, time counted weeks before Prof. 
Stuart’s explanation came. When it did come, 
Honoria knew there need be no perplexing 
question about her grandfather’s will. The 


HONOmA. 


240 

Harbor-town mansion would throw wide 
open its doors as a refuge for the sorrowing 
and the needy. 

Meanwhile Honoria had gone through the 
daily routine of life without any outward 
change. She had smiled on the children. 
She had been bright and earnest in her ef- 
forts to make home a happy place to her 
father. She had readily responded to Mrs. 
Lambert’s demands on her sympathy. And 
her interest in the plantation, and the deeper 
interest in the souls of the working people, 
was as warm and active as ever. 

But though no mortal eye beheld it, Hon- 
oria struggled day and night with her own 
heart ; she found forgiveness so hard, — not 
pardon, but forgiveness! The trial was so 
many-sided and subtle in the pain it brought 
her. She was too clear-sighted to escape the 
knowledge that truly she had been deceived. 
And Truth was something she held as dear 
as even her grandfather could have desired. 

Reserve she respected, but Prof. Stuart’s 
silence was not from reserve — she could not 


HONORIA, 


241 


shut her eyes to this ; she knew it was a weak 
lack of courage that had tempted him to 
withhold a knowledge that rightfully be- 
longed to her. And the sense that he had 
used as a token of their plighted troth his dead 
wife’s wedding-ring, made Honoria shiver, as 
though she had been wearing that which did 
not belong to her. — And she had. 

To one of her sensitive nature, the mere 
fact, too, that Prof. Stuart could thus use 
the little ring was repellant. And her heart 
was all hurt and wounded like some tender 
bird blown by a rough wind out of its shelter- 
ing nest. And because she could not fully 
forgive, — the Light of God’s love was dimmed 
for her ; — she knew that Love was unchanged, 
but for the time she was out of harmony with 
it. — In her journal she wrote : 

“ I have a little picture hanging on my wall, 
which is a type of myself these days. It is 
only a profile of a child’s face, hence I can 
see but one side of it ; and so it is now with 
God’s Love. I can see but one side of it, 
and that not the side that till now has made 
16 


242 


HONORIA. 


my life beautiful as a dream. — But I am 
wrong, or that one side would satisfy me, 
for I know the All of Love is there, even 
though I may not see the same side of Love 
I am used to. 

Still I do not seem able to look up from 
this trial and see it as sent by a loving God. 
I can see that God is right in sending it. I 
can see that I may need the trial. And I can 
feel, too — oh ! I do feel it — that God is love — 
but not in the darkness of the sorrow do I see 
that love. And yet, feeling is more than see- 
ing — only I crave the comfort of sight, even 
though my Saviour’s own words tell me, 
* Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet 
have believed.’ ” 


VII. 


“ O do you hear that Voice from Heaven ? 
‘ Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’ ” 



ES — Honoria heard and heard it ; heard 


-J- it when she went out, and when she 
came in. It whispered in the stirring of the 
wind among the palm-trees, it echoed in the 
song of the birds, and in the rhythmic ripple 
of the waves as the river sped onward to the 
sea. A river of peaceful flow as it wound in 
and out through the southern border of the 
plantation, though up among the hills where 
it found its rise it was a swift, turbulent 
stream. 

The knowledge of this comforted Honoria 
those days, holding as it did a metaphor of 
peace, whispering, though life was tossing her 
about by rough tossings now, yet onward, 
afterward, there were green meadows through 
which still waters flowed, and by whose bank- 


(243) 


HONORIA. 


244 

sides were rest and refreshment. But, when 
would she reach them ? 

You know how sometimes we see our very 
self, standing apart as it were, the soul 
brought out into clearly defined view. It was 
so with Honoria those days ; her own hand 
seemed to turn the full focus of light on her 
own soul. This is not a frequent experience ; 
which is well, for introspection is not what 
we any of us need so much as looking off and 
beyond self ; and it was entirely new to Hon- 
oria, for her way had been to forget self. 
But she needed such discipline, for her Chris- 
tian life had been thus far almost free from 
trial, and a sight of self involved the entering 
into the valley of humiliation ; and the first 
shadow she met in that valley, demanded that 
she should learn what it is to in very truth 
forgive, when one has been sorely wounded. 

It was part of her living a Gospel life, too, 
that she should thus encounter one of the 
first lessons taught in the Gospel. One of 
the first, I repeat, for in Luke’s preface chap- 
ters we read of the Angels of Peace and 




I 


r ■ . 

ffONORIA. 245 

Good-will,” and surely there would have been 
! no need for their blessed song had there been 

naught to forgive. 

“ Peace, — Good-will,” — verily they are the 
flowers of which forgiveness is the root. And 
yet, in the light of this, how slow we are 
wont to be in treading the path of forgiving 
freely and fully. 

No wonder Honoria was troubled when she 
found her heart harsh in judgment, slow in 
forgiving. And out of the question, ‘ What is 
it to forgive ? ’ another query blossomed, for 
all spiritual questions are, like fruit-bearing 
trees, progressive,— the bud first, then the 
blossom, and then the clustering fruit. 

This latter query that came to Honoria 
was a very full one, for it asked, “ What is it 
to be a Christian ? ” Her heart responded in 
the Bible words: “It is to have the same 
mind in you that was in Christ Jesus.” And 
i that answer, as she pondered it, expanded till 

i her soul whispered a reply much like the 

' words I copy from one of England’s earnest 

I" thinkers: “ It is to seek and to serve Godin 



HONORIA. 


246 

the faith and hope which perfect Love creates, 
delivered from the fear which perfect Love 
casts out. It is to live in His presence, to 
watch for His victory, to know through the 
depth of our being, that a holy God who loves 
us must hold us responsible for our faithful- 
ness to the quickening of His grace ; it is to 
have the large bountifulness of heart, and 
when possible of hand, of Him who ^causeth 
His sun to shine on the evil and the good.’ 
It is to have the most Christ-like ways, the 
surest, the sweetest, and the noblest ; to make 
earthly life more and more truly worship in 
spirit and in truth, by loving and serving our 
Father in Heaven, and serving His children 
on earth.” And all this can be, because 
Christ said, “ I am the Vine, ye are the 
branches ; he that abideth in me, and I in 
him, bringeth forth much fruit.” 

Ah ! if we knew that real abiding in Christ, 
then we would have found the “ Pearl of 
Price,” even the San Grail ! Then, we would 
have “ the power of living and loving outside 
of ourselves, a power without which, so many 
lives remain failures in the highest sense.” 


HO NOKIA. 


247 


** The same mind in you that was in Christ 
Jesus,” — thinking of that mind Honoria learn- 
ed precious lessons those days, for when she 
saw her own soul in all its unlikeness to the 
Divine pattern, how could she condemn the 
weakness of another ? Still though she rec- 
ognized all this, there were subtle involvings 
in the trial that had come to her, that her 
power of forgiveness found it hard to encom- 
pass. She remembered the old saying, “ For- 
give and forget.” But how could she forget 
that which had taken the joy out of her 
earthly life ? 

Then, too, she had not ceased to love be- 
cause her ideal was destroyed — and yet, she 
felt Prof. Stuart could never be the same to 
her. Her friend, she would always call him, 
but he never could fill the place he had , that 
was past, all had changed, for she no longer 
could feel toward him the beautiful harmony 
of love without a discordant note. 

Frankly she wrote Prof. Stuart all this, and 
before she ended her letter, she had come to 
the power and grace of forgiving. And then, 
her young dream of earthly happiness over, 


248 


HONORIA. 


she bravely took up life and its duties. Duties 
that thronged about her, leaving but little 
time for musing during the next six years. 

So it happened, by what seemed a simple 
chain of circumstances, the conditions of 
Squire Lambert’s will were fulfilled without 
Honoria’s being involved in perplexing discus- 
sion, regarding the complexity of opposing 
duties. And through letters of directions to 
Judge Bruce and Ambrose Warner, she caused 
the door of the Harbor-town mansion to be 
opened wide, as her grandfather had wished, 
for a refuge for the poor and lonely. 

“ Do not call it Home,” Squire Lambert 
had written, “ for that means heart meeting 
heart, and how can Home be for the Home- 
less? No, let it be rather an outstretched 
Hand, a listening Ear, a kindly Eye — any 
term that holds the essence of shelter, pro- 
tection, and tenderness.” And Honoria, mind- 
ful of her grandfather’s words, called it “ The 
Open Door.” But I anticipate in telling this 
now, for it took months before it was accom- 
plished and in working order. 


VIII. 


OMING of age! the stepping from 



V_y twenty on to twenty-one, a boundary 
no wider than that dividing yesterday from 
to-day, and yet how much it means. 

Perchance dating from Honoria’s own 
heart’s stand-point she would have said it did 
not mean much to her, for the hour that 
marked life’s first great sorrow, she called her 
coming of age. And in one sense, she was 
right, for surely it is the knowing trouble, 
that makes souls count age, far more than the 
calendar’s reckoning of time. And yet, there 
are some hearts that never lose their youth, 
tossed though they may be from one trial on 
to another. In part this is a natural gift, but it 
is more wont to be faith’s victory over suffer- 
ing, the developing a new life, not out of the 
old, but out of trust and close following of 
Christ. 


(249) 


250 


HONORIA. 


When this perpetual youth is thus a blos- 
som of faith, then it is that human lives be-' 
come Gospel lives, because the soul ‘‘looks 
on the world in its true light, not as a homey 
but as a Journey"' — looks, too, with so clear 
an insight into other hearts that the power of 
sympathy is deepened, and the truth recog- 
nized, that where trouble is, there is always a 
great need of tenderness. Honoria not only 
felt this need, but she gave the tenderness too. 

On the morning of her twenty-first birth- 
day, she wrote her dear friend, Rachel, a let- 
ter from which I will copy later on. It was 
a day that, according to her father’s wish, 
was to be celebrated as a festive time, and 
Honoria had pleaded for a holiday for the 
plantation people as well as for the home ser- 
vants, though for the latter there was but 
little holiday-keeping, in the sense of rest 
from labor, for the evening was to be ob- 
served by a brilliant party, that was to include 
not only the upper' class of English residents 
in and about Port Royal and Kingston, but 
the officers and their families from both gar- 


HO NOKIA. 


251 

risons, and from the naval ships at anchor in 
the Bay. 

Honoria was bright and full of interest in 
the pleasure her father thus desired to give 
her, even though it was not in harmony with 
her own taste ; for from a child, she had always 
a sweet and ready grace in meeting and re- 
sponding to any effort made for her enjoy- 
ment. 

For months she had been busy preparing 
tokens of good-will for distribution that day, 
thinking when she began them, they would 
be farewell remembrances ; but since the 
shadow of disappointment had fallen across 
her love for Prof. Stuart, her return to 
America had been indefinitely postponed. 
In truth the girl’s heart somewhat shrank 
from the return that had been so longed for. 
And yet, as I said before, she did not let her 
own sadness over-gloom what was to others a 
happy time, and by sunrise she and Fergus 
were going in and out among the cabins of 
the native^,* saying kind words, and leaving 
tangible gifts. A time of rest did not come 


252 


HONOR! A. 


till the heat of the advancing day enforced 
it. It was then that she wrote Rachel : 

“ Do you remember,” her letter began, 
“ our first spring-time at the Academy ? The 
memory of one day comes to me so vividly ; 
it was early in May ; listening to the song of 
the gay-plumaged Island birds this morn- 
ing it all came back to me, and almost I 
seemed to hear again the song of our dear 
New England birds — the chorus made of 
blended notes, ‘ laughter of robins, call of 
meadow-larks, song of bobolinks, ditty of 
sparrows, whistle of orioles, and last, but not 
least, the twitter of the swallows.’ 

A party of us girls had been up the hill- 
side seeking the first May blossoms — and you 
carried in your hand a slender hazel twig 
you broke from a bush by the road-way, tell- 
ing meanwhile why it was believed to have so 
marvellous a power of healing. A legend 
that pictured a wild storm, and the Virgin 
Mother fleeing into Egypt, holding the infant 
child safe in her loving arms, as she sought 
shelter from wind and rain beneath the over- 


HONORIA. 


253 


hanging branches of the thick-growing hazel 
bushes, since which it has been called a 
growth of healing virtues. A story that is a 
mere nothing in itself, but in the telling you 
made it much. 

We were all young girls, and as we talked, 
we added, after the fashion of youth, fancy to 
fancy, till one among the group asked, ‘ why 
on some of the tree-boughs, tufts of last year s 
leaves were left, yellow dry things, and yet 
their clasp firm enough to have withstood win- 
ter winds and storms? ’ In reply you said the 
clinging leaves always seemed to you a lesson 
in human history, for they so pictured selfish 
souls, that were unwilling to part with the 
blessings of one year till sure of ^ the blos- 
soms of another. But I said, I did not read 
the parable thus, neither do I now. Some- 
how it seems to me far more like a tenderness, 
unwilling to leave the opening buds unpro- 
tected, and thus clinging on, till the very 
buds they have sheltered push them off. 

‘‘ It is an odd memory out of my mind’s 
full treasure house, to come to me on this my 


254 


JIOA^OJ^IA. 


twenty-first birthday, yet, I can not put it by, 
for it comes freighted with the question, 
‘ What is the meaning of dead leaves ? ’ 
Just for myself I see the significance of the 
bough tufted with the dry leaves of a by- 
gone year. — I see — yes, I see. — I have come 
to a new era in my life, and now the buds of 
another spring must push off the dry leaves, 
and open out into new, fresh leafage. 

“ I never before fully realized this wonder- 
ful beauty of Tree emblems, never, even 
though years ago, my grandfather bade me 
remember the word Tree meant mind or in- 
tellect. I recall now how he traced the 
thought from its origin, giving me the Anglo- 
Saxon word etymologically linked with Tree. 
A word that we still keep in use when we say 
‘ I trow ’ — meaning, I believe. 

“ But I must not linger over these thoughts, 
for tree emblems are boundless. I am so glad 
the thought of them has come to me as my 
birthday gift. — Ah ! for a soul strong enough 
to mount by faith’s uplifting to some top- 
most bough ! 


HO NOKIA. 


255 


‘‘ Ah ! if now and here 

“ We above all doubt might soar, 

In air as crystal clear, 

And every mystery explore, 

And bring all distance near ; 

“ And focus in one field of light 

Truth’s star-beams scattered wide ! 
And both the poles of life unite 
Harmonious side by side ! 

But such sight is not for us, for 

“ ‘ The smallest moss upon a stone, 

Like writing on the wall, 

Can only be explained by One, 

Though seen and read by all. 

“ While here, the wisest sage must live 
By faith and not by sight ; 

For duty only. Heaven will give 
Enough of guiding light. 

« But when at last, from life’s dark road. 
We climb heaven’s heights serene. 
All light upon the hill of God 
In God’s light shall be seen. 

All kingdoms of the truth shall thus 
To tearless eyes be shown : 

And, dwelling in that purer air, 

We’ll know even as we’re known. 


IX. 


I SAID Honoria’s day began at sunrise, 
and truly it reached over well-nigh into 
the- morrow, for when the last gay lingerer 
left Flamboyante, the glow of dawning was 
already tinting the cloud-banks, that like 
mountains, lay piled, one above the other, 
over toward the horizon. 

The lights in the many-colored lamps that 
had made the garden and balconies a fairy 
place were beginning to burn low, too, while 
the flowers that festooned door and window 
frames were drooping, making the air heavy 
with that subtle fragrance that is never so 
strong as when flowers are drawing near their 
fading time. — And all was still, with that pe- 
culiar hush, unlike other stillness, that pref- 
aces as a sacred benediction the dawning of 
a new day. 

It is no wonder that this dawning hour is 
(256) 


HONORIA. 


257 


the one of all the twenty-four in which souls 
are most wont to pass from earth to Heaven, 
for it is a time when the Unseen seems so 
near. Neither is it any wonder that even 
dull minds acknowledge that it holds the 
same relation to the day that the pure heart 
holds toward spiritual sight. The deep under- 
tone of its holy meaning coming out of the 
very hush and infinite stillness, that like the 
spirit of repose, is a foretaste of the rest Be- 
yond. 

It was but a few minutes Honoria thus 
pondered, for her father joined her almost 
immediately after the last guest-laden carriage 
rolled away, and then they stood together on 
the threshold of the open door. 

Honoria’s intercourse with her father dur- 
ing the years since she came to the Island 
home, had been much like the in-coming and 
out-going tide, — sometimes their hearts had 
come close, the one to the other, and then 
drifted apart again. And the apart times had 
been the most frequent, for contradictory as 
it seems, there is nothing so apt to keep 

17 


258 


HONORIA. 


members of the same household apart as the 
receiving benefits one from another, that ac- 
cording to common acceptance involve obli- 
gation. Emerson puts it sharply, and yet his 
very sharpness holds a sad truth : It is a 

great happiness to get off without heart-burn- 
ing from those who have been served . by 
you.” It is thus he writes, and while I call 
the words an exaggerated statement, never- 
theless it was something of Mr. Lambert’s 
feeling toward Honoria, for he was almost 
vexed that she had rendered the aid he had 
so needed. 

But one reason for this was, he well knew 
he had trespassed on that aid, and that more 
than once Honoria had signed papers that 
meant larger amounts than she had supposed. 
And now the settling time had come. 

Why wait for to-morrow, why not have 
the explanation over that very hour,” — it was 
thus he said to himself as he joined her. 

She met him with a smile, linking her arm 
in his, and straightway yielded to his request 
to come to his study, and receive the _ papers 



HONORIA. 259 

that had to do with the relinquishment of his 
stewardship of the amounts entrusted to his 
, care during the years of her minority. 

-■ Honoria felt no fear regarding this settle- 

ment — indeed it was long before she under- 
stood. True herself, how could she look for 
untruth in another ? 

What passed between father and daughter 
during that hour neither ever told— and si- 
lence was better.— Only this much Mrs. Lam- 
bert knew ; after it a change came, not only 
over Honoria, but over Ralph Lambert also. 
What the change was, she could hardly de- 
fine, certainly it was no lessening of Hon- 
oria’s loveliness, and yet something had gone 
from her fair face, but something had come 
into it too. 

The truth was, she had been led into the 
shadow of evil ; and after the knowledge of 
^ the darkness of wrong doing, the world never 

can be the same again. It happened in 
A this w'ay : her father, brought face to face 

' with his young, true-souled daughter, saw his 
if own far wandering from the true and good as 


26 o 


HONORIA, 


he never had seen it before, and with less re- 
serve than perchance he realized, he told of 
his past. And she heard every word — and 
then, she strove to help him out of the dark- 
ness into the light. 

A girl’s influence ! — it seemed such a little 
thing in comparison with the evil against 
which it had to contend ; but a stalk of wheat 
is a little thing, and yet the slender stalk holds 
seed-grains that contain food for hundreds ! 

That Ralph Lambert made slow progress 
in the new and better life on which he re- 
solved that hour, is not to be wondered at — 
so slow, that six years went by, before Hon- 
oria felt the time had come when with safety 
she could leave her father, and return to 
Harbor-town. For so often during those 
years he had weakly yielded to temptation 
and slipped back again into the old paths — 
but she had never wearied praying for him, 
and the knowledge of this was like a hand 
out-reached to a drowning man, it guided 
him back to the safe haven again and again. 
And then — at last — he prayed for himself — 


HO NOKIA. 


261 

only stammeringly at first, but God does not 
count words. No, God counts desire. 

Meanwhile Honoria hardly realized how 
close, all this experience was leading her into 
the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. For there 
is no sorrow that leads so near to Christ as 
the sorrowing for those we love who do 
wrong — “ for that is pre-eminently the afflic- 
tion of Jesus Christ Himself, and in nothing 
does He more deeply sympathize with us.” 

During these years Fergus had passed, out 
of childhood ; he was a lad now of fifteen, 
and for his sake it seemed best that Honoria 
should return to the home land — and so she 
came to her last >Sabbath on the Island. 
She had had but little time during those busy 
years to think of the old legend she had loved 
so well in her girlhood, and yet how truly 
had she found the treasure she had sought ! 

It was early morning when she and her 
father, Mrs. Lambert, and Fergus entered the 
parish church — an old-fashioned building with 
little of artistic grace, but made sacred by 
consecration, and by the ages during which 


262 HONOR I A . 

its walls had echoed to the blessed words of 
England’s ‘Mother Church.’ 

Infinite peace rested over land and sea that 
Sabbath ; a gentle breeze stole in through 
the wide-open windows, filling the old church 
with the sweet air of early morning, while 
each window was a frame for some wondrous 
glimpse of nature’s beauty. But it was not 
the outward that stirred Honoria’s soul, for it 
was the sacramental Sabbath. The altar, a 
plain wooden table, centuries old, lay spread 
with the snow-white linen, and the holy 
emblems — there were flowers there, too. 

Hand in hand, Honoria and her father, 
close followed by Fergus and his mother, 
passed up the long aisle, up to the altar rail- 
ing, where side by side they knelt on the 
worn slab, where in lowly following of the 
Christ, the faithful had knelt year after year. 
And into their hands they took the cup of 
blessing, the worn silver of “ the Grail,” as 
the Island Bishop called the chalice. He 
said but few words, but it was tenderly sig- 
nificant to Honoria that those few were in- 


HONORTA, 


263 


wrought with the spiritual meaning of the 
Grail; and then, simply as though he were 
speaking to little children, the good Bishop 
lifted their thoughts to the peculiar character 
of the Communion Service,” bidding them 
remember, it was ^‘not merely union with 
Christ, but with friends in Christ!^ and so, 
though they might never again kneel side by 
side at the Lord’s table, yet always, no mat- 
ter how far separated they were by earthly 
miles, their hearts would beat in unison, when 
they went apart to “ do this in remembrance 
of Him,” so true it is that spiritual things are 
spiritually discerned. 

This was Honoria’s blessing for that Sab- 
bath morning.— It was twilight when an- 
other blessing came to her. — Twilight, when 
a little company sought her from among the 
plantation people and house servants, dark- 
skinned men and women, with hands toil- 
hardened, men and women used to the bond- 
age of enforced servitude all their lives, never- 
theless free men and women now, for she had 
told them of Christ. 


264 


HONORIA. 


Tell me — did not the rendering of such ser- 
vice, leading from the slavedom of sin into 
the freedom that walks at liberty because 
God’s laws are kept, make her life a Gospel ? 
If you seek by domg to find the answer to 
my question, then the blessing that came to 
Honoria Lambert will come to you, too, for 
you will learn as she did, — 

“ The rugged rock oft holds within its bosom 
Deep hidden, a fount of sweet and living water, 
That needs but the soft power of some meet influ- 
ence 

To call it gushing forth : — thus, too, the heart 
Of many a rough, neglected child of labour, 

When gently touched by the mild words of kind- 
ness. 

Is found to be a source whence flow all plente- 
ously. 

Trust, gratefulness, and truth, and the sweet sym- 
pathies 

That make men loved and lovely.” 


X. 

111 ACH has in his own life prophetic, 

-J — ^ seer-like moments of joy and sorrow, 
and noble insight, and to trust them is to live 
nobly and think safely.” 

Do you believe this ? — Certain it is there 
come to us all moments of clear vision. 
Mount Pisgah hours ! 

Dividing periods come to us, too, from 
which we gaze on the path we have trod, and 
off and on to that by which we are to go. 
Periods that separate one part of our life from 
the other as completely as a hill separates a 
stretch of land, revealing on one side a sandy 
desert, while the other opens out toward 
meadows rich in verdure, and through which 
gliding water-brooks run on their peaceful 
course. 

These intense hours of life always are our 

most individual hours, bounded as they are 

(265) 


/ 


266 HONORIA. 

by the words of the Book which tell us the 
heart knoweth its own.” — And we all inter- 
pret life according to what it means to us in- 
dividually, and just as it demands the poet to 
detect poetic beauty, the artist eye to see art 
beauty,” just as “we can not know light 
through the demonstrations of the astrono- 
mer,” but through seeing, “ so we can only 
know life by living, so too, God can not 
manifest Himself to a soul whose spiritual 
eye is tight shut any more than the sun can 
shine into a blind man’s eyes.” 

But Honoria Lambert’s spiritual eyes were 
never closed, hence she beheld God in all, even 
the most bewildering experiences life had held 
for her. And the days of her homeward voy- 
age she dwelt much on what God had brought 
her since she sailed away from the shore to 
which now she was returning. She dealt 
with her experiences much as an artist does 
with the varied sketches made from time to 
time during a sojourn in a foreign country, 
holding up for her soul to gaze on, now a 
sunlight view, now a shadowed ; now a moun- 


HONORIA, 


267 

tain peak, and now a valley, and every one 
filled a place of its own, for to the earnest- 
hearted every event fills a page of life’s full 
lesson book. For what is life but school 
time ? What are we but slow learners? — and 
yet. 

Let knowledge grow from more to more, 

But more of reverence in us dwell.” 

Honoria found it easy to trace God’s 
Hand in the great events that had stirred her 
heart, but not so easy when she strove to 
thus regard the seemingly trifling. And it 
was the “ little things ” she wanted to uplift, 
for it was the doing “ common things relig- 
iously,” the “sanctifying daily life,” that she 
desired to attain. And she knew before she 
attained it, she must adjust not only onCy but 
all the events of her by-gone, finding in them 
the prelude needed for the new life opening 
out before her. A life that held grave respon- 
sibilities, and much of service, as she had de- 
cided to immediately assume the care of the 
Harbor-town refuge. All that charge in- 
volved, half frightened her, for she knew 


268 


HONORIA. 


the living out plans is all unlike the making 
them. Over and over she repeated Faith’s 
stronghold words — “Fear thou not, for I am 
with thee,” and repeating them her soul 
found peace, fears vanished. 

Perhaps the thing she had dreaded most 
was the meeting Prof. Stuart, but before the 
vessel reached its mooring even that dread 
was calmed. She had come to realize that 
it was not the impossible thing she had 
thought, when first her sorrow dawned, for 
the heart to love without full completeness of 
sympathy. But she felt, too, such a friend- 
ship could' not end in marriage according to 
her high ideal of married love, which had not 
grown less as her years increased. — For, firmly 
she believed such a love required a oneness of 
heart for its foundation, cemented by truth of 
principle, and faithfulness of trust, and when 
one has found this lacking, 

“ Can it be wisdom to forget 
What wisdom taught us yesterday ? ” 

Honoria knew it was not, but still she re- 
membered the blessed part of a one-sided 


HONORIA, 269 

friendship is the power of elevating the 
weak ! 

Fond as she had always been of metaphor, 
she could not fail to recall her arrival at 
Jamaica, and contrast with it the day of her 
return. Then, she had arrived in the early 
morning ; at sunrise the ship had found an- 
chorage, a golden flood of light resting on 
sea and shore ; but on this return voyage it 
wa3 twilight when the shore was reached. 
The day had been dreary — gray, leaden clouds 
hiding the blue sky from dawn on to sunset. 
Not even a star glint shone through, as hold- 
ing Fergus’ hand in hers, they looked across 
the narrowing stretch of water to where 
lights were beginning to shine from the homes 
in the city. 

It was a scene of confusion. Vessels 
crowded the Harbor from world-wide ports, 
but the skillful pilot guided with unerring 
eye the in-coming ship to its pier. — And 
then, a minute later, Ambrose Warner held 
Honoria’s hand in his ; words of greeting 
were exchanged ; they met as they had 


2/0 


HONORIA. 


parted, friends, dear as brother and sister, 
and clinging to his strong arm with one hand, 
while with the other she held Fergus in a 
tight clasp, Honoria Lambert bade farewell 
to captain and crew, and stepped once again 
on the familiar land of this Western Conti- 
nent. And then followed a swift drive to 
Judge Bruce’s hospitable home, a cordial 
welcome, and the next day a speedy depart- 
ure for Harbor-town. 

Of Honoria’s meeting with Prof. Stuart I 
find no record ; but that they did meet often 
during the years that followed, I know from 
what Rachel has told me. — Rachel, a wife 
and mother ! — this seemed strange to Honoria, 
but her gladness in her friend’s gladness was 
without a shadow, so warmly she rejoiced in 
it, believing as she did, a woman’s life is 
never so complete and happy as when she 
faithfully fills this highest mission. Strange, 
too,, it seemed to meet as well-nigh middle- 
aged women when they had parted as young 
girls. — But there were no bridges to cross in 


HONORIA, 


271 


Rachel and Honoria’s friendship, for they 
had never grown apart, or been divided in 
sympathy. 

Many another strange experience greeted 
Honoria, for age and time had wrought many 
a change in Harbor-town. Graves had been 
made in the Hill-side burial-place ; homes left 
desolate. New Ijomes had sprung up too, 
new lives had opened, and in all changes, 
whether of sorrow or of joy, her heart ten- 
derly sympathized. So she straightway 
found her place, and entered on a Gospel 
life again. 


XI. 


LL the same, and yet all so changed.” 



^LJL — It was thus Honoria thought as 
she and Fergus stood together on the porch 
of the Harbor-town mansion. Nature was all 
as when she left ; the garden borders were 
bright with the familiar summer flowers ; the 
sea waves came rippling up on the sandy 
beach with the same sweet music. — But, 
when once she crossed the threshold and en- 
tered her home, for a little while it was hard ; 
for unknown faces met her at every turn ; 
weary, sad-eyed women, and little children 
whose countenances told of want and early 
suffering. 

Then, too, the aforetime spacious rooms in 
many cases had been divided, and the whole 
atmosphere of the mansion no longer breathed 
of home, but gave one the sense that it was 
a place supported by a beneficiary fund. 


(272) 


HONORIA, 


273 


This Honoria speedily changed, for when 
she came, Love came too. — And yet, it was 
no easy task ; often her heart failed her, and 
she was kept very humble in her own sight, 
for she found, as many another Christian 
worker has done, that the spirit of work is 
much easier to obtain, than submission’'; 
she found it much easier to say, “ Lord, I 
will do,” than to say, Lord, what wilt Thou 
have me to do ? ” 

A great longing, too, often filled her heart, 
for the happy by-gone time, and the dear com- 
panionship of her grandparents. But the re- 
sponsibilities of the present gave little oppor- 
tunity for backward looks, and it was in the 
present she strove to live, doing the work God 
sent simply and quietly, striving not to feel 
overwhelmed with it ; striving, too, to remem- 
ber that while to herself she seemed all unfit 
for it, ‘‘ God had given her the work to do, 
hence He would give her the needful strength 
and wisdom.” 

The thus trying to keep self out of sight 
held one great secret of Honoria’s success, for 
18 


274 


ffONORIA. 


it made her simple and natural, and kept clear 
her power to discern that right is right, and 
wrong is wrong/’ In truth, her life was en- 
folded in a spirit of willingness to leave results 
with God, and so she met daily duties calmly 
and trustfully, her key-note of service, 
^‘prayer,” — and her watchward, ^‘Go for- 
ward.” 

And now, there is no need to tell in detail 
more of Honoria Lambert’s Gospel life — for 
you know its source. And yet, because it 
tells it so well I copy prayer-full lines, that I 
beg you read, as though you were hearkening 
to her own voice speaking from her own soul, 
for I think they hold the spirit of Honoria’s 
daily prayer ; certain I am they reflect her 
daily life : 

“ I ask Thee for a thoughtful love, 

Through constant watching, wise, 

To meet the glad with joyful smiles. 

And to wipe the weeping eyes — 

And a heart at leisure from itself. 

To soothe and sympathize. 


HONORIA. 


275 


Wherever in the world I am. 

In whatsoe’er estate, 

I have a fellowship with hearts. 
To keep and cultivate. 

And a work of lowly love to do. 
For the Lord on whom I wait.” 


XII. 


“ To-day looks back on yesterday, 

Life’s yesterday, the waiting time the dawn. 
And reads a meaning in it, unknown. 

When it was with us.” 

ES — we have come now to the parting 



J- place, you and I, who, hand in hand, — 
verily I would fain believe heart to heart, 
too, — have followed the outline story of how 
Honoria Lambert lived a Gospel life, A sim- 
ple story, that is like some mountain range 
that rests in even line against the sky, unbro- 
ken by lofty peak, or clefted gorge ; and yet, 
Honoria’s life holds a high lesson for you, and 
for me. For, surely it hints that we may live, 
as she did, a Gospel life, if we cling close to 
the Christ, walking in the light of His guid- 
ance, and doing His will, — His will ! — “ this 
is the will of God even our sanctification,” 
and the stepping-stone to this sanctification 


(276) 


HO NOKIA, 


277 


is found when our hearts can say, Thy will, 
not mine, be done.” 

Can your heart thus say ? — 

When we seek in this spirit of submission, 
then we will find the precious thing life holds 
for us each and every one — even our San 
Grail. And what matter if the way to the 
supreme moment of life, when God’s will 
becomes our will, be a rough path, up-hill all 
the way ? * What matter if we tread it foot- 
sore and weary now, — the end is sure — and, 
God knows the way we take — hence what 
matter if the service He bids us render be 
lowly service ? What matter if our task be 
naught more than the speaking a word of 
cheer to a weary heart ? the meeting smiles 
with smiles, tears^ith tears ? or the extend- 
ing a hand of sympathy — the showing ten- 
derness, and longing to help those who have 
wandered far from the right, back again, out 
of darkness to light, from evil to good. 

Humble services all of them — and yet re- 
member they are inwrought with the truth 
that 


278 


HONORIA. 


“ To love is more than to be loved, by leave 
Of Heaven, to give is more than to receive.’’ 

So go on your way, just doing the little 
deeds of kindliness and you will find 

“ The Grail of blessings. 

An earthly sweetness forth will fling.” 

For, 

“To it is power unearthly given. 

Such as one knows is born of Heaven.” 

Yes — the Holy Grail, this treasure most 
precious, surely it is ‘‘the pearl of great 
price ” — Love. 

What pearl so blessed as the pearl of loving 
service rendered for Christ’s sake, the being 
blessed by God with power to inspire others, 
to help make life purer, truer, loftier, calmer, 
brighter ? 

The Holy Grail. Yes, I repeat surely it is 
Love — and whosoever findeth the Heavenly 
Love, findeth God. 

* Fountain of Love ! Thyself true God ! 

Ocean, wide-flowing ocean. Thou, 


HONORIA. 


Thou art a sea without a shore, 


A sea which can contract itself 
Within my narrow heart. 

A harbor that can hold full well 
Shipwrecked humanity. 

O Light ! O Love ! O very God ! 
My heart is fit to break 
With love of all Thy tenderness 
For us poor sinners’ sake. 

My comfort, this shall be. 

That, when I serve my dearest Lord, 
My service worships Thee ! ” 



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